THE WORKS 

OF 

JOHN RUSKIN, 

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JOHN RUSKIN, M.A., LL.D. 

In 1840 or '41, Ruskin went to Italy with his father and mother, and while in Rome had his 
face cut in cameo. Of this portrait he says in Praetenta, vol. II., chap. III.:-" Concerning which, 
as also other later portraits of me, I will be thus far proud as to tell the disappointed spectator, 
once for all, that the main good of my face, as of my life, is in the eyes,-and only in those seen 
near • that a very dear and wise French friend also told me, a long while after this, that the lips 
though not ApoUine were kind ... and of the shape of the head, fore and a;ft, I have my own 
opinions, but do not think it time yet to tell them." 



SESAME AND LILIES. 



tf/ 



THREE LECTURES BY 



JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D. 



1. OF KINGS' TREASURIES. 

2. OF QUEENS' GARDENS. 

3. OF THE MYSTERY OF LIFE. 



REPRINTED FROM THE THIRD ENGLISH EDITION, 

WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATITE EXTRACTS FROM RUSKIN'S 

OTHER WOIJKS 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN WILEY & SONS, 

15 AsTOR Place. 

1888. 










COPYRIGHT, 

JOHN WILEY & SONS, 

18^. 



EDITORS' PREFACE. 



The success of the present system of education will 
be open to grave question as long as pupils leave 
school with so little conception of the close and prac- 
tical relation between moral and mental growth, and 
so little sense of personal responsibility. The knowl- 
edge which consists simply of acquired information 
is but a poor substitute for the strength of a true 
education, and this education must, as Ruskin says, be 
" moral first ; intellectual secondarily. Intellectual 
before — (much more without) — moral education, is, in 
completeness, impossible, and, in incompleteness, a 
calamity." 

The intellectual education, which is to be the direct 
result of the teacher's instruction, must be accompa- 
nied by a degree of moral development largely depend- 
ent upon the success of the teacher in appealing to the 
thoughtful side of the child's nature. Practical expe- 
rience has shown us that the strongest hold on the 
sympathy of the pupil is secured in what are com- 



editor's preface. 

monly called " reading classes," for in these the subject 
of the lesson can most easily be made the basis of 
interesting and suggestive talks, not to the j)upils but 
with them, on questions of social ethics and moral 
principles. 

Some of Euskin's lectures are peculiarly fitted for 
this use, but frequently the obscureness of his refer- 
ences and his figurative language make the study 
of them tedious and unsatisfactory. It is to lighten 
this labor and make Euskin explain himself by quota- 
tions from his other books that we have prepared the 
following notes. If the assistance we have tried to 
give helps a few more girls to see the beautiful possi- 
bilities in their own lives, however simple and unevent- 
ful, and leads them to study further the man who, 
whatever may be his faults, has always striven toward 
the noblest and purest ends, Ave shall have accom- 
plished our object. 



c. A. B. 
E. E. w. 



Cambridge, 1888. 



PREFACE. 



I. Being now fifty-one years old, and little likely to 
change my mind hereafter on any important subject of 
thought (unless through weakness of age), I wish to pub- 
lish a connected series of such parts of my works as now 
seem to me right, and likely to be of permanent use. In 
doing so I shall omit much, but not attempt to mend 
what I think worth reprinting. A young man neces- 
sarily writes otherwise than an old one, and it would be 
worse than wasted time to try to recast the juvenile 
language : nor is it to be thought that I am ashamed 
even of what I cancel ; for great part of my earlier work 
was rapidly written for temporary purposes, and is now 
unnecessary, though true, even to truism. What I wrote 
about religion, was, on the contrary, painstaking, and, 
I think, forcible, as compared with most religious writ- 
ing ; especially in its frankness and fearlessness : but it 
was wholly mistaken ; for I had been educated in the 
doctrines of a narrow sect, and had read history as ob- 
liquely as sectarians necessarily must. 



Ill 



iv PREFACE. 

Mingled among tliese either unnecessary or erroneous 
statements, I find, indeed, some that might be still of 
value ; but these, in my earlier books, disfigured by af= 
fected language, partly through the desire to be thought 
a fine writer, and partl}^ as in the second volume of 
Modern Painters, in the notion of returning as far as I 
could to what I thought the better style of old English 
literature, especially to that of my then favourite, in 
prose, Richard Hooker. 

II. For these reasons, though, as respects either art, 
policy, or morality as distinct from religion, I not only 
still hold, but would even wish strongly to re-afiirm the 
substance of what I said in my earliest books, I shall 
reprint scarcely anything in this series out of the first 
and second volumes of 3Iodern Painters ; and shall omit 
much of the Seven Lamps and Stones of Venice : but all 
my books written within the last fifteen years will be 
republished without change, as new editions of them 
are called for, with here and there perhaps an addi- 
tional note, and having their text divided, for conven- 
ient reference, into paragraphs consecutive through 
each volume. I shall also throw together the shorter 
fragments that bear on each other, and fill in with such 
unprinted lectures or studies as seem to me worth pre- 



PBEFACE. V 

servins:, so as to keep the volumes, on an average, com- 
j)osed cf about a liundred leaves each. 

III. The first book of which a new edition is required 
chances to be Sesame and Lilies, from which I now de- 
tach the old preface, about the Alps, for use elsewhere ; 
and to which I add a lecture given in Ireland on a sub- 
ject closely connected with that of the book itself. I 
am glad that it should be the first of the complete 
series, for many reasons ; though in now looking over 
these two lectures, I am painfully struck by the waste 
of good work in them. They cost me much thought, 
and much strong emotion ; but it was foolish to sup- 
pose that I could rouse my audiences in a little while 
to any sympathy with the temper into which I had 
brought myself by years of thinking over subjects full 
of pain ; while, if I missed my purpose at the time, it 
was little to be hoped I could attain it afterwards ; 
since phrases written for oral delivery become ineffec- 
tive when quietly read. Yet I should only take away 
what good is in them if I tried to translate them into 
the language of books ; nor, indeed, could I at all have 
done so at the time of their delivery, my thoughts then 
habitually and impatiently putting themselves into 
forms fit only for emphatic speech : and thus I am 



VI PREFACE. 

startled, in my review of them, to find that, though 
there is much, (forgive me the impertinence) which 
seems to me accurately and energetically said, there is 
scarcely anything put in a form to be generally convinc- 
ing, or even easily intelligible ; and I can well imagine 
a reader laying down the book without being at all 
moved by it, still less guided, to any definite course of 
action. 

I think, however, if I now say briefly and clearly 
what I meant my hearers to understand, and what I 
wanted, and still would fain have, them to do, there 
may afterwards be found some better service in the 
passionately written text. 

TV The first Lecture says, or tries to say, that, life 
being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought 
to waste none of them in reading valueless books ; and 
that valuable books should, in a civilized country, be 
within the reach of every one, printed in excellent form, 
for a just price ; but not in any vile, vulgar, or, by 
reason of smalluess of type, physically injurious form, 
at a vile price. For we none of us need many books, and 
those which we need ought to be clearly printed, on the 
best paper, and strongly bound. And though we are, 
indeed, now, a wretched and poverty-struck nation, and 



PEEFACE. VH 

hardly able to keep soul aucl body together, still, as 
no person in decent circumstances would put on his 
table confessedly bad wine, or bad meat, without being- 
ashamed, so he need not have on his shelves ill-printed 
or loosely and wretchedly-stitched books ; for, though 
few can be rich, yet every man who honestly exerts 
himself may, I think, still provide, for himself and his 
family, good shoes, good gloves, strong harness for his 
cart or carriage horses, and stout leather binding for 
his books. And I would urge upon every young man, 
as the beginning of liis due and wise provision for his 
household, to obtain as soon as he can, by the severest 
economy, a restricted, serviceable, and steadily — how- 
ever slowly — increasing, series of books for use through 
life ; making his little library, of all the furniture in his 
room, the most studied and decorative piece ; every 
volume having its assigned place, like a little statue in 
its niche, and one of the earliest and strictest lessons 
to the children of the house being how to turn the 
pages of their own literary possessions lightly and de- 
liberately, with no chance of tearing or dogs' ears. 

V. That is my notion of the founding of King's Treas- 
uries ; and the first Lecture is intended to show some- 
what the use and preciousness of their treasures : but 



Vlll PREFACE. 

the two following ones have wider scope, being written 
in the hope of awakening the youth of England, so far 
as my poor words might have any power with them, to 
take some thought of the purposes of the life into which 
they are entering, and the nature of the world they 
have to conquer. 

VI. These two lectures are fragmentary and ill-ar- 
ranged, but not, I think, diffuse or much compressible. 
The entire gist and conclusion of them, however, is in the 
last six paragraphs, 135 to the end, of the third lecture, 
which I would beg the reader to look over not once nor 
twice (rather than any other part of the book), for they 
contain the best expression I have yet been able to put 
in words of what, so far as is within my power, I mean 
henceforward both to do myself, and to plead with all 
over whom I have any influence, to do also according to 
their means : the letters begun on the first day of this 
year, to the workmen of England, having the object of 
originating, if possible, this movement among them, in 
true alliance with whatever trustworthy element of help 
they can find in the higher classes. After these para- 
graphs, let me ask you to read, by the fiery light of 
recent events, the fable at p. 142 (§ 117), and then §§ 
129 — 131 ; and observe, my statement respecting the 



PREFACE. IX 

famine at Orissa is not rhetorical, but certified by offi- 
cial documents as witliiu tlie truth. Five hundred thou- 
sand persons, at least, died by starvation in our British 
dominions, wholly in consequence of carelessness and 
want of forethouglit. Keep that well in your memory ; 
and note it as the best possible illustration of modem 
political economy in true practice, and of the relations 
it has accomplished between Supply and Demand. 
Then begin the second lecture, and all will read clear 
enough, I think, to the end; only, since that second 
lecture was written, questions have arisen respecting 
the education and claims of women which have greatly 
troubled simple minds and excited restless ones. I am 
sometimes asked my thoughts on this matter, and I 
suppose that some girl readers of the second lecture 
may at the end of it desire to be told summarily what 
I would have them do and desire in the present state 
of things. This, then, is what I would say to any girl 
who had confidence enough iu me to believe what I 
told her, or do what I ask her. 

VII. First, be quite sure of one thing, that, however 
much you may know, and whatever advantages you may 
possess, and however good you may be, you have not 
been singled out, by the God who made you, from all the 



X PEEFACE. 

other girls in the world, to be especially informed re- 
specting His own nature and character. You have not 
been born in a luminous point upon the surface of the 
globe, where a perfect theology might be expounded to 
you from your youth up, and where everything you 
were taught would be true, and everything that was en- 
forced upon you, right. Of all the insolent, all the 
foolish persuasions that by any chance could enter and 
hold your empty little heart, this is the proudest and 
foolishest, — that you have been so much the darling of 
the Heavens, and favourite of the Fates, as to be born 
in the very nick of time, and in the punctual place, 
when and where pure Divine truth had been sifted 
from the errors of the Nations ; and that your papa had 
been providentially disposed to buy a house in the 
convenient neighbourhood of the steeple under which 
that Immaculate and final verity would be beautifully 
proclaimed. Do not think it, child; it is not so. This, 
on the contrary, is the fact, — unpleasant you may think 
it ; pleasant, it seems to me, — that you, with all your 
pretty dresses, and dainty looks, and kindly thoughts, 
and saintly aspirations, are not one whit more thought 
of or loved by the great Maker and Master than any 
poor little red, black, or blue sa,vage, running wild in 



PEEFACE. XI 

the pestilent woods, or naked on the hot sands of the 
earth : and that, of the two, you i3robably know less 
about God than she does ; the only difference being 
that she thinks little of Him that is right, and you, 
much that is wrong. 

That, then, is the first thing to make sure of ;— that 
you are not yet perfectly well informed on the most 
abstruse of all possible subjects, and that, if you care 
to behave with modesty or propriety, you had better be 
silent about it. 

VIII. The second thing which you may make sure of 
is, that however good you may be, you have faults ; that 
however dull you may be, you can find out what some 
of them are ; and that however slight they may be, you 
had better make some — not too painful, but patient — 
effort to get quit of them. And so far as you have 
confidence in me at all, trust me for this, that how 
many soever you may find or fancy your faults to be, 
there are only two that are of real consequence,— Idle- 
ness and Cruelty. Perhaps you may be proud. Well, 
we can get much good out of pride, if only it be not 
religious. Perhaps you may be vain : it is highly 
probable ; and very pleasant for the people who like to 
praise you. Perhaps you are a little envious : that is 



Xil PEEFACE. 

really very shocking ; but then — so is everybody else. 
Perhaps, also, you are a little malicious, which I am 
truly concerned to hear, but should probably only the 
more, if I knew you, enjoy your conversation. But 
whatever else you may be, you must not be useless, 
and you must not be cruel. If there is any one point 
which, in six thousand years of thinking about right 
and wrong, wise and good men have agreed upon, or 
successively by experience discovered, it is that God 
dislikes idle and cruel people more than any other ; — 
that His first order is, " "Work while you have light ; " 
and His second, " Be merciful while you have mercy." 

" Work while you have light," especially while you 
have the liglit of morning. There are few things more 
wonderful to me than that old people never tell young 
ones how precious their youth is. They sometimes 
sentimentally regret their own earlier days ; sometimes 
prudently forget them ; often foolishly rebuke the 
young, often more foolishly indulge, often most fool- 
ishly thwart and restrain ; but scarcely ever warn or 
watch them "Remember, then, that I, at least, have 
warned you, that the happiness of your life, and its 
power, and its part and rank in earth or in heaven, de- 
pend on the way you pass your days now. They are 



PREFACE. xm 

not to be sad days ; far from that, the first duty of 
young people is to be delighted and delightful ; but 
they are to be in the deepest sense solemn days. 
There is no solemnity so deep, to a rightly-thinking crea- 
ture, as that of dawn. But not only in that beautiful 
sense, but in all their character and method, they are 
to be solemn days. Take your Latin dictionary, and 
look out " soUennis, ' and fix the sense of the word well 
in your mind, and remember that every day of your 
early life is ordaining irrevocably, for good or evil, the 
custom and practice of your soul ; ordaining either sa- 
cred customs of dear and lovely recurrence, or trench- 
ing deej)er and deeper the furrows for seed of sorrow. 
Now, therefore, see that no day passes in which you do 
not make yourself a somewhat better creature ; and in 
order to do that, find out, first, what you are now. Do 
not think vaguely about it ; take pen and paper, and 
write down as accurate a description of yourself as you 
can, with the date to it. If you dare not do so, find out 
vfhj you dare not, and try to get strength of heart 
enough to look yourself fairly in the face, in mind as 
well as body. . do not doubt but that the mind is a 
less pleasant thing to" look at than the face, and for 
that very reason it needs more looking at ; so always 



xiv PEEFACE. 

have two mirrors on your toilet table, and see that witli 
proper care you dress body and mind before them 
daily. After the dressing is once over for the day, 
think no more about it : as your hair will blow about 
your ears, so your temper and thoughts will get ruffled 
v/ith the day's work, and may need, sometimes, twice 
dressing ; but I don't want you to carry about a mental 
pocket comb ; only to be smooth braided always in the 
morn ins.-, 

IX. Write down tbeE, frankly, what you are, or, at 
least, what you think yourself, not dwelling upon those 
inevitable faults which I have just told you are of little 
consequence, and which the action of a right life will 
shake or smooth away ; but that you may determine to 
the best of your intelligence what you are good for, and 
can be made into. Ton will find that the mere resolve 
not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other 
people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve 
yourself. Thus, from the beginning, consider all your 
accomplishments as means of assistance to others ; read 
attentively, in this volume, paragraphs 74, 75, 19, and 
79, and you will understand what I mean, with respect 
to languages and music. In music especially you will 
soon find what personal benefit there is in being ser- 



PEEFACE. XV 

viceable : it is probable that, however limited your 
powers, jou have voice and ear enough to sustain a note 
of moderate compass in a concerted piece ; — that, then, 
is the first thing to make sure you can do. Get your 
voice disciplined and clear, and think only of accuracy ; 
never of effect or expression : if you have any soul 
worth expressing it will show itself in your singing ; 
but most likely there are very few feelings in you, at 
present, needing any particular expression ; and the 
one thing 3'ou have to do is to make a clear-voiced lit- 
tle instrument of yourself, which other people can en- 
tirely depend upon for the note wanted. So, in draw- 
ing, as soon as you can set down the right shape of 
anything, and thereby explain its character to another 
person, or make the look of it clear and interesting to 
a child, you will begin to enjoy the art vividly for ics 
own sake, and all your habits of mind and powers of 
memory will gain precision : but if you only try to 
make showy drawings for praise, or pretty ones for 
amusement, your drawing will have little or no real 
interest for you, and no educational power Avhatever. 

Then, besides this more delicate work, resolve to do 
every day some that is useful in the vulgar sense. Learn 
first thoroughly the economy of the kitchen ; the good 



XVI PEEFACE. 

and bad qualities of every common article of food, and 
the simplest and best modes of their preparation : 
when you have time, go and help in the cooking of 
poorer families, and show them how to make as much 
of everything as possible, and how to make little, nice ; 
coaxing and tempting them into tidy and pretty ways, 
and pleading for well-folded table-cloths, however 
coarse, and for a flower or two out of the garden to 
strew on them. If you manage to get a clean table- 
cloth, bright plates on it, and a good dish in the mid- 
dle, of your own cooking, you may ask leave to say a 
short grace ; and let your religious ministries be con- 
fined to that much for the present. 

X. Again, let a certain j^art of your day (as little as you 
choose, but not to be broken in upon) be set apart for 
making strong and pretty dresses for the jDoor. Learn 
the sound qualities of all useful stuffs, and make every- 
thing of the best you can get, whatever its price. I 
have many reasons for desiring you to do this, — too 
many to be told just now, — trust me, and be sure you 
get everything as good as can be : and if, in the vil- 
lainous state of moderate trade, you cannot get it good 
at any price, buy its raw material, and set sopie of the 
poor women about you to- spin and weave, till you have 



PBEFACE. Xvii 

got stuff that can be trusted : and then, every day, 
make some little piece of useful clotliing, sewn witli 
your own lingers as strongly as it can be stitched ; and 
embroider it or otherwise beautify it moderately with 
fine needlework, such as a girl may be proud of having 
done. And accumulate these things by you until you 
hear of some honest persons in need of clothing, which 
may often too sorrowfully be ; and, even though you 
should be deceived, and give them to the dishonest, and 
hear of their being at once taken to the pawnbroker's, 
never mind that, for the pawnbroker must sell them to 
some one who has need of them. That is no business 
of yours ; what concerns you is only that when you see 
a half-naked child, you should have good and fresh 
clothes to give it, if its parents will let it be taught to 
wear them. If they will not, consider how they came 
to be of such a mind, which it will be wholesome for 
you beyond most subjects of inquiry to ascertain. 
And after you have gone on doing this a little while, 
you will begin to understand the meaning of at least 
one chapter of your Bible, Proverbs xxsi., without 
need of any laboured comment, sermon, or meditation. 
XI, In these, then (and of course in all minor ways 
besides, that you can discover in your own household), 



XVlll PREFACE. 

you must be to the best of your strengtli usefully em- 
ployed during the greater part of the day, so that you 
may be able at the end of it to say, as proudly as any 
peasant, that you have not eaten the bread of idleness. 
Then, secondly, I said, you are not to be cruel. Per- 
haps you think there is no chance of your being so ; 
and indeed I hope it is not likely that you should 
be deliberately unkind to any creature ;J but unless 
you are deliberately kind to every creature, you will 
often be cruel to many. Cruel, partly through want of 
imagination (a far rarer and weaker faculty in women 
than men), and yet more, at the present day, through 
the subtle encouragement of your selfishness by the 
religious doctrine that all which we now suppose to be 
evil will be brought to a good end ; doctrine practically 
issuing, not in less earnest efforts that the immediate 
unpleasantness may be averted from ourselves, but in 
our remaining satisfied in the contemplation of its ulti- 
mate objects, when it is infiicted on others. 

It is not likely that the more accurate methods of re- 
cent mental education will now long permit young people 
to gi.'ow up in the persuasion that, in any danger or dis- 
tress, they may expect to be themselves saved by the 
providence of God, while those around them are lost by 



PREFACE xrx 

His Improvidence : but they may be yet loug restrained 
from rightly kind action, and long accustomed to endure 
both their own pain occasionally, and the pain of others 
always, with an unwise patience, by misconception of the 
eternal and incurable nature of real evil. Observe, there- 
fore, carefully in this matter : there are degrees of pain, 
as degrees of faultfulness, which are altogether conquer- 
able, and which seem to be merely forms of Avholesome 
trial or discipline, t^our fingers tingle when you go out 
on a frosty morning, and are all the warmer afterwards ; 
your limbs are weary with wholesome work, and lie 
doYv^u in the j)leasauter rest ; you are tried for a little 
while b}^ having to wait for some promised good, and it 
is all the sweeter when it comes. |[ But you cannot carry 
the trial j)ast a certain point. Let the cold fasten on 
your hand in an extreme degree, and your fingers v,dll 
moulder from their sockets. Fatigue yourself, but 
once, to utter exhaustion, and to the end of life you 
shall not recover the former vigour of your frame. Let 
heart-sickness pass beyond a certain bitter point, and 
the lieart loses its life forever. 

Now, the very definition of evil is in this irremediable- 
ness. It means sorrow, or sin, which end in death ; and 
assuredly, as far as we know, or can conceive, there are 



XX PREFACE. 

many conditions both of pain and sin which cannot but 
so end. Of course we are ignorant and blind creatures, 
and we cannot know what seeds of good may be in pres- 
ent suffering, or present crime ; but with what we can- 
not know, we are not concerned. It is conceivable that 
murderers and liars may in some distant world be ex- 
alted into a higher humanity than they could have 
reached without homicide or falsehood ; but the con- 
tingency is not one by which our actions should be 
guided. There is, indeed, a better hope that the 
beggar, who lies at our gates in misery, may, within 
gates of pearl be comforted ; but the Master, whose 
words are our only authority for thinking so, never 
Himself inflicted disease as a blessing, nor sent away 
the hungry unfed, or the wounded unhealed. 

XII. Believe me, then, the only right principle of 
action here, is to consider good and evil as defined by our 
natural cense of both ; and to strive to promote the one, 
and to conquer the other, with as hearty endeavor as if 
there were, indeed, no other world than this. Above 
all, get quit of the absurd idea that Heaven will inter= 
fere to correct great errors, while allowing its laws to 
take their course in punishing small ones. If you pre- 
pare a dish of food carelessly, you do not expect Provi- 



PREFACE. XXI 



dence to make it palatable ; neitlier, if, througli years 
of folly, 3^ou misguide your own life, need you expect 
Divine interference to bring round everything at last for 
the best. I tell you, positively, the world is not so con- 
stituted : the consequences of great mistakes are just as 
sure as those of sraall ones, and the happiness of your 
whole life, and of all the lives over which you have power, 
depends as literally on your own common sense and dis- 
cretion as the excellence and order of the feast of a day. 
XIII. Think carefully and bravely over these things, 
and you will find them true : having found them so, think 
also carefully over your own position in life. I assume 
that you belong to the middle or upper classes, and 
that you would shrink from descending into a lower 
sphere. You may fancy you would not : nay, if you are 
very good, strong-hearted, and romantic, perhaps you 
really W' ould not ; but it is not wrong that you should. 
You have then, I suppose, good food, pretty rooms to 
live in, pretty dresses to wear, power of obtaining every 
rational and wholesome pleasure ; you are, moreover, 
probably gentle and grateful, and in the habit of every 
day thanking God for these things. But why do you 
thank Him ? Is it because, in these matters, as well as 
in your religious knowledge, you think He has made 



XXll PREFACE. 

a favourite of you. Is the essential meaning of your 
thanksgiving, "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as 
other girls are, not in that I fast twice in the week 
while they feast, but in that I feast seven times a week, 
Avhile they fast," and are you quite sure this is a pleasing 
form of thanksgiving to your Heavenly Father? Sup- 
pose you saw one of your own true earthly sisters, Lucy 
or Emily, cast out of your mortal father's house, starv- 
ing, helpless, heartbroken ; and that every morning 
when you went into your father's room, you said to him, 
" How good you are, father, to give me what you don't 
give Lucy," are you sure that, whatever anger your 
parent might have just cause for, against your sister, he 
would be pleased by that thanksgiving, or flattered by 
that praise ? Nay, are you even sure that you are so 
much the favourite : suppose that, all this while, he 
loves poor Lucy just as well as you, and is only trying 
you through her pain, and perhaps not angry with 
her in anywise, but deeply angry with you, and all 
the more for your thanksgivings? Would it not be 
well that you should think, and earnestly too over 
this standing of yours : and all the more if you wish 
to believe that text, which clergymen so much dis- 
r.ke preaching on, " How hardly shall they that have 



PREFACE. XXlll 

riches enter into the Kingdom of God ? " You do not 
believe it now, or you would be less complacent in 
your state ; and you cannot believe it at all, until you 
know that the Kingdom of God means — " not meat 
and drink, but justice, peace, and joy in tlie Holy 
Ghost," nor until you know also that such joy is not 
by any means, necessarily, in going to church, or in 
singing hymns ; but may be joy in a dance, or joy in 
a jest, or joy in anything you have deserved to possess, 
or that you are willing to give ; but joy in nothing that 
separates you, as by any strange favour, from your 
fellow-creatures, that exalts you through their degra- 
dation — exempts you from their toil — or indulges you 
in time of their distress. 

XIV. Think, then, and some day, I believe, you will feel 
also — no morbid passion of pity such as would turn you 
into a black Sister of Charity, but the steady fire of 
perpetual kindness which Avill make you a bright one. 
I speak in no disparagement of them ; I know well how 
good the Sisters of Charity are, and how much we owe 
to them ; but all these professional pieties (except ho 
far as distinction or association may be necessary for 
effectiveness of work) are in their spirit wrong, and in 
practice merely plaster the sores of disease that ought 



XXIV PEEFACE. 

never have been permitted to exist : encouraging at the 
same time the herd of less excellent women in frivolity, 
by leading them to think that they must either be good 
u]? to the blacli standard, or cannot be good for any- 
thing. "Wear a costume, by all means, if 3'ou like ; but 
let it be a cheerful and becoming one ; and be in your 
heart a Sister of Charity always, without either veiled 
or voluble declaration of it. 

XV. As I pause, before ending my preface — thinking 
of one or two more points that are difficult to write of — 
I find a letter in The Times, from a French lady, which 
says all I want so beautifully, that I will print it just 
as it stands : 

Sir, — It is often said that one example is worth many 
sermons. Shall I be judged presumptuous if I point out 
one, which seems to me so striking just now, that, however 
painful, I cannot help dwelling upon it ? 

It is the share, the sad and large share, that French so- 
ciety and its recent habits of luxury, of expenses, of dress, 
of indulgence in every kind of extravagant dissipation, has 
to lay to its own door in its actual crisis of ruin, misery, 
and humiliation. If our mcnagcres can be cited as an ex-^ 
ample to English housewives, so, alas ! can other classes of 
our society be set up as an example — not to be followed. 

Bitter must be the feelings of many a French woman 



PREFACE. SXY 

whose days of luxury and expensive habits are at an end: 
and wliose bills of bygone splendour lie with a heavy weight 
on her conscience, if not on her purse ! 

With us the evil has spread high and low. Everywhere 
have the examples given by the highest ladies in the land 
been followed but too successfully. 

Every year did dress become more extravagant, entertain- 
ments more costly, expenses of every kind more considerable. 
Lower and lower became the tone of society, its good breed- 
ing, its delicacy. More and more were monde and demi-monde 
associated in newspaper accounts of fashionable doings, in 
scandalous gossip, on racecourses, in premieres representa- 
tions, in imitation of each other's costumes, moMUers and slang. 

Living beyond one's means became habitual — almost neces- 
sary — for every one to keep up with, if not to go beyond, 
every one else. 

What the result of all this has been we now see in the 
wreck of our prosperity, in the downfall of all that seemed 
brightest and highest. 

Deeply and fearfully impressed by what my own country 
has incurred and is suffering, I cannot help feeling sorrowful 
when I sec in England signs of our besetting sins appearing 
also. Paint and chignons, slang and vaudevilles, knowing 
" Anonymas " by name, and reading doubtfully moral novels, 
are in themselves small offences, although not many years 
ago they would have appeared very heinous ones, yet they 
are quick and tempting conveyances on a very dangerous 
V^h-road. 



SXVl PEEFACE. 

1 would that all Englishwomen knew how they are looked 
uj) to from abroad — what a high oj)inion, what honour and 
reverence we foreigners have for their principles, their truth- 
fulness, the fresh and pure innocence of their daughters, the 
healthy youthfulness of tiieir lovely children. 

May I illustrate this by a short example which happened 
very near me? During the days of the emeales of 1848, all 
the houses in Paris were being searched for firearms liy the 
mob. The one I was living in contained none, as the master 
of the house repeatedly assured the furious and incredulous 
Eepublicans. They were going to lay violent hands on him, 
when his wife, an English lady, hearing the loud discussion, 
came bravely forward and assured them that no arms were 
concealed. ''Vous etes anglaise, nous vous croyons; les 
anglaises disent toujours la verite," was the immediate 
answer, and the rioters quietly left. 

Now, Sir, shall I be accused of unjustified criticism if, 
loving and admiring your country, as these lines will prove, 
certain new features strike me as painful discrepancies in 
English life ? 

Far be it from me to preach the contempt of all that can 
make life lovable and wholesomely pleasant. I love nothing 
better than to see a woman nice, neat, elegant, looking 
her best in the prettiest dress that her taste and purse can 
afford, or your bright, fresh young girls fearlessly and per- 
fectly sitting their horses, or adorning their houses as pretty 
\sic,; it is not quite grammar, but it is better than if it were;] 
as care, trouble, and refinement can make them. 



PREFACE. XXVH 

It is the degree 'beyond that which to iis has proved so 
fatal, and that I would our example could warn you from, 
as a small rej)ayment for your hospitality and friendliness to 
us in our days of trouble. 

May Englishwomen accept this in a kindly spirit as a new- 
year's wish from 

French Lady. 

Dec. 29. . 

That, then, is the substance of what I would fain say 
convincingly, if it might be, to my girl friends ; at all 
events with certainty in my own mind that I was thus 
far a safe guide to them. 

XVI. For other and older readers it is needful I should 
write a few words more, respecting what opportunity I 
have had to judge, or right I have to speak, of such 
things ; for, indeed, too much of what I have said about 
women has been said in faith only. A wise and lovely 
English lady told me, when Sesame and Lilies first 
apjjeared, that she was sure the Sesame would be use- 
ful, but that in the Lilies I had been writing of what 
I knew nothing about. Which was in a measure too 
true, and also that it is more partial than my writings 
are usually : for as Ellesmere spoke his speech on the 

intervention, not indeed otherwise than he felt, 

but yet altogether for the sake of Gretchen, so I wrote 



XXVlll PEEFACE. 

tlie Lilies to please one girl ; and were it not for what 
I remember of her, and of few besides, should now 
perhaps recast some of the sentences in the Lilies in a 
very different tone : for as years have gone by, it has 
chanced to me, untowardlyin some respects, fortunately 
in others (because it enables me to read history more 
clearly), to see the utmost evil that is in women, while 
I have had but to believe the utmost good. The best 
women are indeed necessarily the most difficult to 
know; they are recognized chiefly in the happiness of 
their husbands and the nobleness of their children ; 
they are only to be divined, not discerned, by the 
stranger ; and, sometimes, seem almost helpless except 
in their homes ; yet without the help of one of them,* 
to whom this book is dedicated, the day would probably 
have come before now, when I should have written and 
thought no more. 

XVII. On the other hand, the fashion of the time 
renders whatever is forward, coarse or senseless, in fem- 
inine nature, too palpable to all men : — the weak pictur- 
esqueness of my earlier writings brought me acquainted 
with much of their emptiest enthusiasm ; and the chances 
of later life gave me opportunities of watching women in 



PREFACE. Xxix 

states of degradation and vindictiveness whicli opened 
to me the gloomiest secrets of Greek and Syrian tragedy. 
I liave seen tliem betray their household charities to 
lust, their pledged love to devotion ; I have seen mothers 
dutiful to their children, as Medea ; and children dutiful 
to their parents, as the daughter of Herodias : but my 
trust is still unmoved in the preciousness of the natures 
that are so fatal in their error, and I leave the words 
of the Lilies unchanged ; believing, yet, that no man 
ever lived a right life who had not been chastened by a 
woman's love, strengthened by her courage, and guided 
by her discretion. 

XYIII. What I might mvself have been, so helped, I 
rarely indulge in the idleness of thinking ; but what I 
am, since I take on me the function of a teacher, it is 
well that the reader should know, as far as I can tell him. 

Not an - unjust person ; not an unkind one ; not a 
false one ; a lover of order, labor, and peace. That, 
it seems to me, is enough to give me right to say all I 
care to say on ethical subjects : more, I could only tell 
definitely through details of autobiography such as none 
but prosperous and (in the simple sense of the word) 
faultless, lives could justify ; — and mine has been neither. 
Yet, if any one, skilled in reading the torn manuscripts 



XXX PEEFACE. 

of the liuman soul, cares for more intimate knowledge 
of me, he may have it by knowing with what persons in 
past history I have most sympathy. 

I will name three. 

In all that is strongest and deepest in me, — that fits 
me for iny work, and gives light or shadow to my being, 
I have sympathy with Guido Guinicelli. 

In my constant natural temper, and thoughts of things 
and of people, with Marmontel. 

In my enforced and accidental temper, and thoughts 
of things and of people, with Dean Swift. 

Any one who can understand the natures of those 
three men, can understand mine ; and having said so 
much, I am content to leave both life and work to be 
remembered or forgotten, as their uses may deserve, 

Denmark Hill, 

1st January, 1871. 



ESAME AND LILIEb 

THREE LECTURES. 



SESAME AND LILIES. 



LECTUEE I.— SESAME. 

OF kings' treasuries. 

"Tou shall each have a cake of sesame, — and ten pound." 

— LuciAN : The Fhhcrman. 

1. My first duty this evening is to ask your pardon for 
the ambiguity of title under which the subject of lect- 
ure has been announced : for indeed I am not going 
to talk of kings, known as regnant, nor of treasuries, 
understood to contain w^ealth ; but of quite another 
order of royalty, and another material of riches, than 
those usually acknowledged. I had even intended to 
ask your attention for a little while on trust, and (as 
sometimes one contrives, in taking a friend to see a 
favourite piece of scenery) to hide what I wanted most 
to show, with such imperfect cunning as I might, until 
we unexpectedly reached the best point of view by 
winding paths. But — and as also I have heard it said, 



6 SESAME AND LILIES. 

by men practised in public address, that liearers are 
never so mucli fatigued as by the endeavour to follow 
a speaker who gives them no clue to his purpose, — I 
will take the slight mask off at once, and tell you 
plainly that I want to speak to you about the treasures 
hidden in books ; and about the way we find them, 
and the way we lose them. A grave subject, you will 
say; and a wide one ! Yes ; so wide that I shall make 
no effort to touch the compass of it. I will try only to 
bring before you a few simple thoughts about read- 
ing, which press themselves upon me every day more 
deeply, as I watch the course of the public mind with 
respect to our daily enlarging means of education ; and 
the answeringly wider spreading on the levels, of the 
irrigation of literature. 

2, It happens that I have practically some connexion 
with r.chools for different classes of youth.; and I re- 
ceive many letters from parents respecting the educa- 
tion of their children. In the mass of these letters I 
am always struck by the precedence which the idea of 
a " position in life " takes above all other thoughts in 
the parents' — more especially in the mothers' — minds. 
" The education befitting such and such a station in 



OF KINGS TREASURIES. 7 

life " — this is the phrase, this the object, always. They 
never seek, as far as I can make out, an education good 
in itself ; even the conception of abstract rightness in 
training- rarely seems reached by the writers. But, an 
education " which shall keep a good coat on my son's 
back ; — which shall enable him to ring with confidence 
the visitors' bell at doubled-belled doors ; which shall 
result ultimately in establishment of a doubled-belled 
door to his own house ;— in a Vv'ord, which shall lead 
to " advancement in life ; " — this we pray for on bent 
knees — and this is aU we pray for." It never seems to 
occur to the parents that there may be an education 
which, in itself, is advancement in Life ; — that any 
other than that may perhaps be advancement in Death ; 
and that this essential education might be more ea- 
sily got, or given, than they fancy, if they set about 
it in the right way ; while it is for no price, and 
by no favour, to be got, if they set about it in the 
wrong. 

3. Indeed, among the ideas most prevalent and effec- 
tive in the mind of this busiest of countries, I suppose tlie 
first — at least that which is confessed with the greatest 
frankness, and put forward as the fittest stimulus to 



8 SESAME AND LILIES. 

youtlifiil exertion — is this of " Advancement in life.'' 
May I ask you to consider with me what this idea 
practically includes, and what it should include. 

Practically, then, at present, " advancement in life " 
means, becoming conspicuous in life ; — obtaining a po- 
sition which shall be acknowledged by others to be 
respectable or honourable. "We do not understand by 
this advancement, in general, the mere making of 
money, but the being known to have made it ; not the 
accomplishment of any great aim, but the being seen to 
have accomplished it. In a word, we mean the grati- 
fication of our thirst for applause. That thirst, if the 
last infirmity of noble minds, is also the first infirmity 
of weak ones ; and, on the whole, tie strongest impul- 
sive influence of average humanity : the greatest efforts 
of the race have always been traceable to the love of 
praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of 
pleasure. 

4. I am not about to attack or defend this impulse. I 
want you only to feel how it lies at the root of effort ; 
especially of all modern effort. It is the gratification of 
vanity which is, with us, the stimulus of toil, and balm 
of repose ; so closely does it touch the very springs of 



OP kings' treasuries. 9 

life that tlie wounding of our vanity is always spoken 
of (and truly) as in its measure mortal; we call it " mor- 
tification," using the same expression, which we should 
apply to a gangrenous and incurable bodily hurt. And 
although few of us may be physicians enough to recog- 
nize the various effect of this passion upon health and 
energy, I believe most honest men know, and would at 
once acknowledge, its leading power with them as a 
motive. The seaman does not commonly desire to be 
made captain only because he knows he can manage 
the ship better than any other sailor on board. He 
wants to be made captain that he may be called captain. 
The clergyman does not usually want to be made a 
bishop only because he believes no other hand can, as 
firmly as his, direct the diocese through its difficulties. 
He wants to be made bishop primarily that he may be 
called " My Lord." And a prince does not usually de- 
sire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a kingdom, because 
he believes that no one else can as well serve the State, 
upon its throne ; but, briefly, because he wishes to be 
addressed as " Your Majesty," by as many lips as may 
be brought to such utterance. 

5. This, then, being the main idea of " advancement 
in life," the force of it applies, for all of us, according to 



10 SESAME AND LILIES. 

our station, particularly to tliat secondary result of 
such advancement wliicli we call " getting into good 
society." We want to get into good society not that 
we may have it, but that we may be seen in it ; and 
our notion of its goodness depends primarily on its 
conspicuousne ss. 

Will you pardon me if I pause for a moment to put 
what I fear you may think an impertinent question ? I 
never can go on with an address unless I feel, or know, 
that my audience are either with me or against me : I 
do not much care which, in beginning ; but I must 
know where they are ; and I v^^ould fain find out, at this 
instant, whether you think I am putting the motives of 
popular action too low. I am resolved, to-night, to state 
them low enough to be admitted as probable ; for 
whenever, in my rritings on Political Economy, I as- 
sume that a little honesty, or generosity, — or what used 
to be called " virtue ' — may be calculated upon as a 
human motive of action, people always answer me, say- 
ing, " You must not calculate on that : that is not in 
human nature : you must not assume anything to be 
common to men but acquisitiveness and jealousy ; no 
other feeling ever has influence on them, except acci- 
dentally, and in matters out of the way of business." I 



OF kings' teeasueies. 11 

begin, accordingly, to-night low in the scale of motives ; 
bnt I must know if you think me right in doing so. 
Therefore,- let me ask those who admit tho love of 
praise to be usually the strongest motive in men's 
minds in seeking advancement, and the honest desire of 
doing an}^ kind of duty to be an entirely secondary one, 
to hold up their hands. (About a dozen of hands held up — 
the audience, partly, not being sure the lecturer is serious, and, 
])artly, shy of expressing opinion.) I am quite serious — I 
really do want to know what you think ; however, I can 
judge by putting the reverse question. Will those who 
think that duty is generally the first, and love of praise 
the second, motive, hold up their hands? {One hand 
reported to ho.ve been held up, behind, tlie lecturer.) Very 
good ; I see you are with me, and that you think I have 
not begun too near the ground. Nov/, without teasing 
you by putting farther question, I venture to assume 
that you v\^ill admit duty as at least a secondary or tertiary 
motive. You think that the desire of doing something 
us fid, or obtaining some real good, is indeed an exist- 
ent collateral idea, though a secondary one, in most 
men's desire of advancement. You will grant that 
moderately honest men desire place and office, at least 
in some measure, for the sake of beneficent power ; 



12 SESAME AND LILIES. 

and would wisli to associate rather with sensible and 
well-informed persons than with fools and ignorant 
persons, whether they are seen in the company of the 
sensible ones or not. And finally, without being troubled 
by repetition of any common truisms about the j^recious- 
ness of friends, and the influence of companions, you 
will admit, doubtless, that according to the sincerity of 
our desire that our friends may be true, and our com- 
panions wise, — and in proportion to the earnestness 
and discretion with which we choose both, will be the 
general chances of our happiness and usefulness. 

6. But, granting that we had both the will and the 
sense to choose our friends well, how few of us have the 
23ower ! or, at least, how limited, for most, is the sphere 
of choice ! Nearly all our associations are determined 
by chance, or necessity; and restricted within a narrow 
circle. "We cannot know whom we would ; and those 
whom v,'e know, we cannot liavo at our side when we 
most need them. All the higher circles of human intel- 
ligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and 
partially open. Yie may, by good fortune, obtain a 
glimpse of a great poet, and hear the sound of his voice ; 
or put a question to a man of science, and be answered 
good-humouredly. "We may intrude ten minutes' talk 



OF kings' treasuries. 13 

on a cabinet minister, answered probably with words 
worse than silence, being deceptive ; or snatch, once or 
twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a bouquet 
in the path of a Princess, or arresting the kind glance 
of a Queen. And yet these momentary chances we 
covet ; and spend our years, and passions, and powers 
in pursuit of little more than these ; while, meantime, 
there is a society continually open to us, of people who 
will talk to us as long as we like, whatever our rank or 
occupation ; — talk to us in the best words they can 
choose, and of the things nearest their hearts. And this 
society, because it is so numerous and so gentle, and 
can be kept waiting round us all day long, — kings and 
statesmen lingering patiently, not to grant audience, 
but to gain it ! — in those plainly furnished and narrow 
anterooms, our bookcase shelves, — we make no account 
of that company, — perhaps never listen to a word they 
would say, all day long! 

7. You may tell me, j)erhaps, or think within your- 
selves, that the apathy with which we regard this com- 
pany of the noble, who are praying us' to listen to them ; 
and the passion with which we pursue the company, prob- 
ably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who have nothing 
to teach us, are grounded in this, — that we can see the 



X 



SESAME AND LILIES. 



faces of tlie living men, and it is themselves, and not 
their sayings, with which we desire to become familiar. 
But it is not so. Suppose you never were to see their 
faces ; — suppose you could be put behind a screen in 
the statesman's cabinet, or the prince's chamber, would 
you not be glad to listen to their words, though you 
were forbidden to advance beyond the screen ? And 
when the screen is only a little less, folded in two in- 
stead of four, and you can be hidden behind the cover 
of the two boards that bind a book, and listen all day 
long, not to the casual talk, but to the studied, deter- 
mined, chosen addresses of the wisest of men ; — this 
station of audience, and honourable privy council, you 
despise ! . v^ 

8. But perhaps you will say that it is because the liv- 
ing people talk of things that are passing, and are of im- 
mediate interest to you, that you desire to hear them. 
Nay ; that cannot be so, for the living people will them- 
selves tell you about passing matters, much better in 
their writin/gs than in their careless talk. But I admit 
that this motive does influence you, so far as you prefer 
those rapid and ephemeral writings to slow and endur- 
ing writings — books, properly so called. For all books 
are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, 



OF kings' treasueies. 15 

and the books of all time. Mark this distinction — it is 
not one of quality only. It is not merely the bad book 
that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a 
distinction of species. There are good books for the 
hour, and good ones for all time ; bad books for the hour, 
and bad ones for all time. I must define the two kinds 
before I go farther. 

9. The good book of the hour, then, — I do not speak 
of the bad ones — is simply the useful or pleasant talk of 
some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, 
printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what 
you need to know ; very pleasant often, as a sensible 
friend's 23resent talk would be. These bright accounts 
of travels ; good-humoured and witty discussions of 
question ; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of 
novel ; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in 
the events of passing history ; — all these books of the 
hour, multiplying among us as education becomes 
more general, are a peculiar possession of the pres- 
ent age ; we ought to be entirely thankful for them, 
and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no 
good use of them. But we make the worst possi- 
ble use if we allow them to usurp the place of true 
books : for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all. 



16 SESAME AND LILIES. 

but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our 
friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, to-day : 
wbetlier worth keeping or not, is to be considered. 
The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast 
time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So, 
though bound iip in a volume, the long letter which 
gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, 
and weather last year at such a place, or which tells 
you that amusing story, or gives you the real circum- 
stances of such and such events, however valuable for 
occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of 
the word, a " book " at all, nor, in the real sense, to be 
" read." A book is essentially not a talked thing, but 
a written thing ; and written, not with the view of mere 
communication, but of permanence. The book of talk 
is printed only because its author cannot speak to 
thousands of people at once ; if he could, he would — 
the volume is mere multiiolication of his voice. You 
cannot talk to your friend in India ; if you could, you 
w^ould; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of 
voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice 
merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The 
author has something to say which he perceives to be 
true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, 



OP kings' treasuries. 17 

no one lias jet said it ; so far as lie knows, no one else 
can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously 
if lie may ; clearly, at all events. In tlie sum of liis 
life lie finds this to be the thing, or group of things, 
manifest to him ; — this, the piece of true knowledge, or 
sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has per- 
mitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever ; 
engrave it on rock, if he could ; saying, " This is the best 
of me ; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved, 
and hated, like another ; my life was as the vapour, and 
is not ; but this I saw and knew ; this, if anything of 
mine, is worth your memory." That is his "writing;" 
it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree 
of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scrip- 
ture. That is a " Book." 

10. Perhaps you think no books were ever so written. 

But, again, I ask you, do you at all believe in honesty, 
or at all in kindness ? or do you think there is never any 
honesty or benevolence in Avise people? None of us, I 
hope, are so unhapjDy as to think that. Well, whatever 
bit of a wise man's work is honestly and benevolently 
done, that bit is his book, or his piece of art.* It is 

"' Note tliis sentence carefully, and compare the Queen of the Air, 
§ lOG. 



18 SESAME AND LILIES. 

mixed always with evil fragments — ill-done, redundant, 
affected work. But if you read rightly, you will easily 
discover the true bits, and those are the book. 

11. Now books of this kind have been written in all ages 
by their greatest men : — by great readers, great states- 
men, and great thinkers. These are all at your choice ; 
and Life is short. You have heard as much before ; — 
yet have you measured and mapped out this short life 
and its possibilities ? Do you know, if you read this, 
that you cauDot read that — that what you lose to-day 
you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip 
with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you ma}^ 
talk with queens and kings ; or flatter yourselves that 
it is with any wortlw consciousness of your own claims 
to respect that you jostle with the hungry and common 
crowd for entree here, aud audience there, when all the 
while this eternal court is open to you, with its society, 
wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen, 
and the mighty, of every place aud time ? Into that you 
may enter always ; in that you may take fellowship and 
rank according to your wish ; from that, once entered 
into it, you can never be outcast but by your oWn fault ; 
by your aristocracy of companionship there, your ov/n 
inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the 



OF EINGS' TREASUEIES. 19 

motives with which you strive to take high place in the 
society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and 
sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to 
take in this company of tho Dead. 

12. " The place you desire," and the place joufit your- 
self foi\ I must also say ; because, observe, this court of 
the past differs from all living aristocracy in this : — it is 
open to labour and to merit, but to nothing else. No 
wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice deceive, 
the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, 
no vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the por- 
tieres of that silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is 
but brief question, Do you deserve to enter ?- Pass. 
Do you ask to be the companion of nobles ? Make 
yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the 
conversation of the wise ? Learn to understand it, and 
you shall hear it. But on other terms ? — no. If you 
will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. The living- 
lord may assume courtesy, the living philosopher ex- 
plain his thought to you with considerate pain ; but 
here we neither feign nor interpret ; you must rise to 
the level of our thoughts if you would be gladdened by 
them, and share our feelings, if you would recognize 
our presence." 



20 SESAME AND LILIES. 

13. This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that 
it is much. You must, in a word, love these people, if 
you are to be among them. No ambition is of any use. 
They scorn your ambition. You must love them, and 
show your love in these two following ways. 

1. — First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and 
to enter into their thoughts. To enter into theirs, ob- 
serve ; not to find your own expressed by tl:iem. If the 
person who wrote the book is not wiser than you, you 
need not read it ; if he be, he will think differently from 
you in many respects. 

Very 'ready we are to say of a book, " How good this 
is — that's exactly what I think ! " But the right feeling 
is, " How strange that is ! I never thought of that be- 
fore, and yet I see it is true ; or if I do not now, I hope 
I shall, some day." But whether thus submissively or 
not, at least be sure that you go to the author to get at 
Ms meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards, i£ 
you think yourself qualified to do so ; but ascertain it first. 
And be sure also, if the author is worth anything, that 
you will not get at his meaning all at once ; — nay, that 
at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive 
in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, 
and in strong words too ; but he cannot say it all ; and 



OF kings' treasukies. 21 

wliat is more strange, loill not, but in a hidden way and 
in parables, in order that he may be sure you want 
it. I cannot quite see the reason of this, nor analyse 
that cruel reticence in the breasts of wise men which 
makes them always hide their deeper thought. They 
do not give it to you by way of help, but of reward; and 
will make themselves sure that you deserve it before 
they allow you to reach it. But it is the same with 
the physical type of wisdom, gold. There seems, to 
you and me, no reason why the electric forces of the 
earth should not carry whatever there is of gold within 
it at once to the mountain tops, so that kings and peo- 
ple might know that all the gold they could get was 
there ; and without any trouble of digging, or anxiety, 
or chance, or waste of time, cut it away, and coin as 
much as they needed. But Nature tloes not manage it 
so. She puts it in little fissures in the earth, nobody 
knows where : you may dig long and find none ; you 
must dig painfully to find aijy. 

14 And it is just the same with men's best wisdom. 
When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, 
' Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would ? 
Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I 
in good trim myself, my sleeves well up to the elbow. 



22 SESAME AND LILIES. 

and my breath, good, and my temper ? " And, keeping 
the figure a little longer, even at cost of tiresomeness, for 
it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search 
of being the author's mind or meaning, his words are as 
the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order 
to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care,, 
wit, and learning ; your smelting-furnace is your q^ 
thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good au- 
thor's meaning without those tools and that fire; \ often 
yoj will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and pattentest 
fusing, before you can gather one grain of the metal. 

15. And, therefore, first of all, I tell you, earnestly and 
authoritatively, (I hioiv I am right in this,) you must get 
into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assur- 
ing yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable — nay 
letter by letter. For though it is only by reason of the 
opposition of letters in the function of signs, to sounds 
in the function of signs, that the study of books is called 
" literature," and that a man versed in it is called, by 
the consent of nations, a man of letters instead of a 
man of books, or of words, you may yet connect with 
that accidental nomenclature this real fact ; — that you 
might read all the books in the British Museum (if you 
could live long enough), and remain an utterly " illiter- 



OF kings' teeasueies. 23 

ate," uneducated person ; but that if you road ten pages 
of a good book, letter by letter, — tliat is to say, with 
real accuracy, — you are for evermore in some measure 
an educated person. The entire difference between 
education and non-education (as regards the merely in- 
tellectual part of it), consists in this accuracy. A well- 
educated gentleman may not know many languages, — 
may not be able to speak any but his own, — may have 
read very few books. But whatever language he knows, 
he knows precisely ; whatever word he pronounces, he 
pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in the 
peerage of words ; knows the words of true descent and 
ancient blood at a glance, from words of modern 
canaille ; remembers all their ancestry, their intermar- 
riages, distant relationships, and the extent to which 
they were admitted, and offices they held, among the 
national noblesse of words at any time, and in any coun- 
try. But an uneducated person may know, by mem- 
ory, many languages, and talk them all, and yet truly 
know not a word of any, — not a word even of his own. An 
ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to 
make his v;ay ashore at most ports ; yet he has only to 
gpeak a sentence of any language to be known for an illit- 
erate .person : so also the accent, or turn of expression of 



24 SESAME AND LILIES. 

a single sentence, will at once mark a scliolar. And this 
is so strongly felt, so conclusively admitted by educated 
persons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is 
enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to 
assign to a man a certain degree of inferior standing for 
ever. 

16. And this is right; but it is a pity that the accu- 
racy insisted on is not greater, and required to a seri- 
ous purpose. It is right that a false Latin quantity 
should excite a smile in the House of Commons ; but 
it is wrong that a false English meaning should not ex- 
cite a frown there. Let the accent of words be watched ; 
and closely : let their meaning be watched more close- 
ly still, and fewer will do the work. A few words 
well chosen and distinguished, will do work that a 
thousand cannot, when every one is acting, equivocally, 
in the function of another. \ Yes ; and words, if they are 
not watched, will do deadly work sometimes. There 
are masked words droning and skulking about us in 
Europe just now, — (there never were so many, owing to 
the spread of a shallow, blotching, blundering, infec- 
tious " information," or rather deformation, everywhere, 
and to the teaching of catechisms and phrases at schools 
instead of human meanings) — there are masked words 



OF kings' tbeasueies. 25 

abroad, I say, wliicli uobody understands, but which 
everybody uses, and most people will also fight for, live 
for, or even die for, fancying they mean this or that, or 
the other, of things dear to them : for such words wear 
chamseleon cloaks — "groundlion" cloaks, of the colour 
of the ground of any man's fancy : on that ground they 
lie in wait, and rend him with a spring from it. There 
never were creatures of prey so mischievous, never dip- 
lomatists so cunning, never poisoners so deadly, as 
these masked words ; they are the unjust stewards of 
all men's ideas : whatever fancy or favourite instinct a 
man most cherishes, he gives to his favourite masked 
word to take care of for him ; the word at last comes 
to have an infinite power over him, — you cannot get at 
him but by its ministry. 

17. And in languages so mongrel in breed as the Eng- 
lish, there is a fatal power of equivocation put into 
men's hands, almost whether they will or no, in being 
able to use Greek or Latin words for an idea when 
they want it to be awful ; and Saxon or otherwise 
common words when they want it to be vulgar. What 
a singular and salutary effect, for instance, would 
be produced on the minds of people who are in the 

habit of taking the Form of the " Word " they live 
2 



26 SESAME AND LILIES. 

by, for the Power of which that Word tells them, if 
we always either retained, or refused, the Greek form 
"biblos," or " biblion," as the right expression for "book" 
— instead of employing it only in the one instance 
in which we wish to give dignity to the idea, and trans- 
lating it into English everywhere else. How whole- 
some it would be for many simple persons, if, in such 
places (for instance) as Acts xix. 19, we retained the 
Greek expression, instead of translating it, and they had 
to read — " Many of them also which used curious arts, 
brought their bibles together, and burnt them before 
all men ; and they counted the price of them, and found 
it fifty thousand pieces of silver ! " Or if, on the other 
hand, we translated where we retain it, and always 
spoke of " The Holy Book," instead of " Holy Bible," 
it might come into more heads than it does at present, 
that the Word of God, by which the heavens were, of 
old, and by which they are now kept in store,* cannot 
be made a present of to anybody in morocco binding ; 
nor sown on any wayside by help either of steam plough 
or steam press ; but is nevertheless being offered to as 
daily, and by us with contumely refused ; and sown in 
us daily, and by us, as instantly as may be, choked, 
* i! Peter, iii. 5-7. 



OF kings' tkeasuries. 27 

18. So, again, consider wliat effect has been produced 
on tlie English vulgar mind by the use of the sonorous 
Latin form " damno," in translating the Greek nara^ 
ufjivGo, when people charitably wish to make it forcible ; 
and the substitution of the temperate "condemn" for 
it, when they choose to keep it gentle ; and what not- 
able sermons have been preached by illiterate clergy- 
men on — " He that believeth not shall be damned ; " 
though they would shrink with horror from translating 
Heb. xi. 7, " The saving of his house, by which he 
damned the world ; " or John viii. 10, 11, "Woman, hath 
no man damned thee ? She saith, No man. Lord. Jesus 
answered her, Neither do I damn thee ; go and sin no 
more." And divisions in the mind of Europe, which 
have cost seas of blood and in the defence of which the 
noblest souls of men have been cast away in frantic des- 
olation, countless as forest leaves — though, in the heart 
of them, founded on deeper causes — have nevertheless 
been rendered practicably possible, namely, by the Eu- 
ropean adoption of the Greek word for a public meeting, 
" ecclesia," to give j^eculiar resjDectability to such meet- 
ings, when held for religious purposes ; and other collat- 
eral equivocations, such as the vulgar English one of 
using the word " priest " as a contraction for "presbyter." 



28 SESAME AND LILIES. 

19. Now, in order to deal with words rightly, this is the 
habit you must form. Nearly every w^ord in your lan- 
guage has been first a word of some other language — of 
Saxon, German, French, Latin, or Greek (not to speak 
of eastern and primitive dialects). And many words 
have been all these ; — that is to say, have been Greek 
first, Latin next, French or German next, and English 
last : undergoing a certain change of sense and use on 
the lips of each nation ; but retaining a deep vital 
meaning, which all good scholars feel in employing them, 
even at this day. If you do not know the Greek alpha- 
bet, learn it ; young or old — girl or boy — whoever you 
may be, if you think of reading seriously (which, of 
course, implies that you have some leisure at command), 
learn your Greek alphabet ; then get good dictionaries 
of all these languages, and whenever you are in doubt 
about a v;ord, hunt it down patiently. Eead Max 
Miiller's lectures thoroughly, to begin with ; and, after 
that, never let a word escape you that looks suspicious. 
It is severe work ; but you will find it, even at first, in- 
teresting, and at last, endlessly amusing. And the gen=> 
eral gain to your character, in power and precision, will 
be quite incalculable. 

Mind, this does not imply knowing, or trying to know. 



OF kings' teeasueies. 29 

Greek or Latin, or Frencli. \ It takes a whole life to 
learn any language perfectly. | But you can easily as- 
certain tlie meanings through which the English word 
has passed ; and those which in a good writer's work it 
must still bear. 

20. And now, merely for example's sake, I will, with 
your permission, read a few lines of a true book with you, 
carefully ; and see what will come out of them. I will 
take a book perfectly known to you all. No English 
words are more familiar to us, yet few perhaps have 
been read with less sincerity. I will take these few 
following lines of Lycidas : 

*' Last came, and last did go, 
The pilot of the Galilean lake ; 
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, 
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain), 
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake, 
'How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain. 
Enow 01 such as for their bellies' sake 
Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ! 
Of other care they little reckoning make. 
Than how to scramble at the sliearers' xeast. 
And shove away the worthy bidden guest ; 
Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold 
A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else, the least 
That to the faithful herdsman's art belongs ! 



30 SESAME AND LILIES. 

What recks it them ? What need they ? They are sped ; 

And when they hst, their lean and flashy songs 

Grate on their scrannel pipes of v/retched straw ; 

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, 

Bnt, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, 

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread ; 

Besides what the grim noli with privy paw 

Daily devours apace, and nothing said.' " 

Let us think over this passage, and examine its words. 

First, is it not singular to find Milton assigning to St. 
Peter, not only his full episcopal function, but the very 
types of it which Protestants usually refuse most pas- 
sionately ? His " mitred " locks ! Milton was no Bishop- 
lover ; how comes St. Peter to be "mitred?" "Two 
massy keys he bore." Is this, then, the power of the keys 
claimed by the Bishops of Eome, and is it acknowledged 
here by Milton only in a poetical licence, for the sake 
of its picturesqueness, that he may get the gleam of the 
golden keys to help his effect ? Do not think it. Great 
men do not play stage tricks with doctrines of life and 
death : only little men do that. Milton means what he 
says ; and means it with his might too — is going to put 
the whole strength of his spirit presently into the say= 
ing of it. For though not a lover of false bishops, he 
uxis a lover of true ones ; and the Lake-pilot is here, in 



OF KINGS TREASURIES. 61 

liis tliouglits, tlie type and lieaci of true episcopal 
230wei'. For Milton reads that text, " I will give unto 
tiiee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven" quite honestly. 
Puritan though he be, he would not blot it out of the 
book because there have been bad bishops ; nay, in 
order to understand him, we must understand that verse 
first ; it will not do to eye it askance, or whisper it under 
our breath, as if it were a weapon of an adverse sect. 
It is a solemn, universal assertion, deeply to be kept in 
mind by all sects. But perhaps we shall be better able 
to reason on it if we go on a little farther, and come 
back to it. For clearly this marked insistance on the 
power of the true episcopate is to make us feel more 
weightily what is to be charged against the false claim- 
ants of episcopate ; or generally, against false claimants 
of power and rank in the body of the clergy ; they 
who, " for their bellies' sake, creep, and intrude, and 
climb into the fold." 

21. Never think Milton uses those three words to fill 
up his veise, as' a loose writer would. He needs all the 
three ; specially those three, and no more than those — 
'' creep," and intrude/' and " climb ; " no other words 
would or could serve the turn, and no more could be 
added. For they exhaustively comprehend the three 



32 SESAME AND LILIES. 

classes, correspondent to tlie three characters, of men 
who dishonestly seek ecclesiastical ]30wer. First, those 
who "creep'" into the fold; who do not care for office, 
nor name, but for secret influence, and do all things 
occultly and cunningly, consenting to any servility of 
office or conduct, so only that they may intimately dis- 
cern, and unawares direct, the minds of men. Then 
those who " intrude " (thrust, that is) themselves into 
the fold, who by natural insolence of heart, and stout 
eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly perseverant self- 
assertion, obtain hearing and authority with the com- 
mon crowd. Lastly, those who " climb," who by labour 
and learning, both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted 
in the cause of their own ambition, gain high dignities 
and authorities, and become "lords over the heritage," 
though not " ensamples to the flock." 
22. Now go on : — 

" Of other care they little reckoning make. 
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast. 
Blind mouths — " 

I pause again, for this is a strange exj)ression ; 
a broken metaphor, one might think, careless and 
unscholarly. 

Not so : its very audacity and pithiness are intended 



OF kings' treasuries. 33 

to make us look close at tlie phrase and remember it. 
Those two monosyllables express the precisely accurate 
contraries of right character, in the two great offices of 
the Church— those of bishop and pastor. 
A " Bishop " means a " person who sees." 
A " Pastor " means a " person who feeds." 
The most unbishoply character a man can have is 
therefore to be Blind. 

The most unpastoral is, instead of feeding, to want to 
be fed, — to be a Mouth. 

Take the two reverses together, and you have " blind 
mouths." We may advisably follow out this idea a 
little. Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen 
from bishops desiring 'power more than lig}d. They 
want authority, not outlook. Whereas their real office 
is not to rule ; though it may be vigorously to exhort 
and rebuke ; it is the king's office to rule ; the bishop's 
office is to ozersee the flock ; to number it, sheep by sheep ; 
to be ready always to give full account of it. Now it is 
clear he cannot give account of the souls, if he has not 
so much as numbered the bodies of his flock. The first 
thing, therefore, that a bishop has to do is at least to 
put himself in a position in which, at any moment, he 
can obtain the history, from childhood, of every living 



34 SESAME AM) LILIES. 

soul in his diocese, and of its j)resenfc state. Down in 
that back street, Bill, and Nancj, knocking eacli other's 
teeth out ! — Does the bishop know all about it ? Has 
he his eye upon them ? Has he hadhis eye upon them ? 
Can he circumstantially explain to us how Bill got into 
the habit of beating Nancy about the head? If he can- 
not, he is no bishop, though he had a mitre as high as 
Salisbury steeple ; he is no bishop, — he has sought to 
be at the helm instead of the masthead ; he has no sight 
of things. " Nay," you say, " it is not his duty to look 
after Bill in the back street." What ! the fat sheep that 
have full fleeces — you think it is only those he should 
look after, while (go back to your Milton) " the hungry 
sheep look up, and are not fed, besides what the grim 
wolf, with privy paw" (bishops knowing nothing about 
it) "daily devours apacej and nothing said?" 

" But that's not our idea of a bishop."^ Perhaps not ; 
but it was St. Paul's ; and it was Milton's. They may 
be right, or W3 may be ; but we must not think we are 
reading either one or the other by putting our meaning 
into their words. 

23. I go on. 

''' But, swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw." 
* Compare the 13th Letter in Time and Tide. 



OF kings' treasueies. 35 

This is to meet the vulgar answer that " if the poor 
are not looked after in their bodies, they are in their 
souls ; they have spiritual food." 

And Milton says, "They have no such thing as 
spiritual food; they are only swollen with wind." At 
first you may think that is a coarse type, and an obscure 
one. But again, it is a quite literally accurate one. 
Take up your Latin and Greek dictionaries, and find 
find out the meaning of " Spirit." It is only a contrac- *^ 
tion of the Latin word "breath," and an indistinct 
translation of the Greek word for " wind." The same 
word is used in writing, " The wind bloweth where it 
listeth ;" and in writing, " So is every one that is born 
of the Spirit;" born of the hreotJi, that is ; for it means 
the breath of God, in soul and body. We have the true 
sense of it in our v/ords " ir^piration " and " expire." 
Now, there are tvv^o kinds of breath with which the flock 
may be filled ; God's breath, and man's. I The breath of 
God is liealth, and life, and peace to them, as the air of 
heaven is to the flocks on the hills ; but man's breath — 
the v/ord which he calls spiritual, — is disease and con- 
tagion to them, as the fog of the ien\ They rot inwardly 
Avith it ; they are puffed up by it, as a dead body by the 
vapours of its own decomposition. This is literally true 



36 SESAME AND LILIES. 

of all false religious teacliing; tlie first and last, and 
fatalest sign of it is tliat " puffing up." Your converted 
children, who teacli their parents ; your converted con- 
victs, who teach honest men; your converted dunces, 
who, having lived in cretinous stupefaction half their 
lives, suddenly awakening to the fact of there being a 
God, fancy themselves therefore His peculiar people 
and messengers ; your sectarians of every species, small 
and great, Catholic or Protestant, of high church or low, 
in so far as they think themselves exclusively in the 
right and others wrong ; and pre-eminently, in every 
sect, those who hold that men can be saved by thinking 
rightly instead of doing rightly, by word instead of act, 
and v^^isli instead of work : — these are the true fog 
children — clouds, these, without water ; bodies, these, 
of putrescent vapour and skin, without blood or flesh : 
blown bag-pipes for the fiends to pipe with — corrupt, 
and^ corrupting, — " Swollen with wind, and the rank 
mist they draw." 

24. Lastly, let us return to the lines respecting the 
power of the keys, for now we can understand them. 
Note the difference between Milton and Dante in their 
interpretation of this power: for once, the latter is weaker 
in thought ; he supposes both the keys to be of the gate of 



OF kings' teeasueies. 37 

heaven ; one is of gold, the other of silver : they are given 
hy St. Peter to the sentinel angel ; and it is not easy to 
determine the meaning either of the substances of the 
three steps of the gate, or of the two keys. But Milton 
makes one, of gold, the key of heaven ; the other, of 
iron, the key of the prison in which the wicked teach- 
ers are to be bound who " have taken away the key of 
knowledge, yet entered not in themselves." 

"We have seen that the duties of bishop and pastor 
are to see, and feed ; and, of all who do so it is said, 
"He that watereth, shall be watered also himself." But 
the reverse is truth also. He that watereth not, shall 
be withered himself, and he that seeth not, shall himself 
be shut out of sight, — shut into the perpetual prison- 
house. And that prison opens here, as well as here- 
after : he who is to be bound in heaven must first be 
bound on earth. That command to the strong angels, 
of which the rock-apostle is the image, " Take him, and 
bind him hand and foot, and cast him out," issues, in its 
measure, against the teacher, for every help withheld, 
and for every truth refused, and for every falsehood 
enforced ; so that he is more strictly fettered the more 
he fetters, and farther outcast, as he more and more 
misleads, till at last the bars of the iron cage close 



38 SESAME AND LILIES. 

upon him, and as " the golden opes, the iron shuts 
amain." 

25. We have got something out of the lines, I think, and 
much more is yet to be found in them ; but we have done 
enough by way of example of the kind of word-by-word 
examination of your author which is rightly called 
"reading;" watching every accent and expression, and 
putting ourselves always in the author's place, annihil- 
ating our own personality, and seeking to enter into 
his, so as to be able assuredly to say, "Thus Milton 
thought," not " Thus /thought, in mis-reading Milton." 
And by this process you will gradually come to attach 
less weight to your own " Thus I thought " at other 
times. You will begin to perceive that what you 
thought was a matter of no serious importance ; — that 
your thoughts on any subject are not perhaps the clear- 
est and wisest that could be arrived at thereupon : — in 
fact, that unless you are a very singular person, you 
cannot be said to have any " thoughts " at all ; that you 
have no materials for them, in any serious matters y' — 
no right to " think," but only to try to learn more of the 

I """Modern "Education" for the most part signifies giving people 
the faculty of thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of import- 
ancc to them.. 



OF kings' teeasuries. 39 

facts. Nay, most probably all your life (unless, as I 
said, you are a singular person) you will have no legiti- 
mate right to an "opinion " on any business, except that 
instantly under your hand. "What must of necessity be 
done, you can always find out, beyond question, how to 
do. Have you a house to keep in order, a commodity 
to sell, a field to plough, a ditch to cleanse ? There 
need be no two opinions about these proceedings ; it 
is at your peril if you have not much more than an 
" opinion " on the way to manage such matters. And 
also, outside of your own business, there are one or two 
subjects on which you are bound to have but one opin- 
ion. That roguery and lying are objectionable, and are 
instantly to be flogged out of the way whenever discov- 
ered ; — that covetousness and love of quarrelling are 
dangerous dispositions even in children, and deadly 
dispositions in men and nations ; — that in the end, the 
God of heaven and earth loves active, modest, and kind 
people, and hates idle, proud, greedy, and cruel ones ; — 
on these general facts you are bound to have but one 
and that a very strong, opinion. For the rest, respect- 
ing religions, governments, sciences, arts, you will iind 
that, on the whole, you can know nothing, — ^judge noth- 
ing ; that the best you can do, even though you may be 



40 SESAME AND LILIES. 

a well-educated person, is to be silent, and strive to be 
wiser every dav, and to understand a little more of the 
thoughts of others, which so soon as you try to do hon- 
estly, you will discover that the thoughts even of the 
wisest are very little more than pertinent questions. 
To put the difficulty into a clear shape, and exhibit 
to you the grounds for indecision, that is all they can 
generally do for you ! — and well for them and for us, 
if indeed they are able " to mis the music with our 
thoughts, and sadden us with heavenly doubts." This 
writer, from whom I have been reading to you, is 
not among the first or wisest : he sees shrewdly as far 
as he sees, and therefore it is easy to find out his full 
meaning ; but with the greater men, you cannot fathom 
their meaning ; they do not even wholly measure it 
themselves, — it is so wide. Suppose I had asked you, 
for instance, to seek for Shakespeare's opinion, instead 
of Milton's, on this matter of Church authority ? — or for 
Dante's? Have any of you, at this instant, the least 
idea what either thought about it ? Have you ever 
balanced the scene with the bishops in Eichard III, 
against the character of Cranmer ? the description of St. 
Francis and St. Dominic against that of him who made 
Virgil wonder to gaze upon him, — " disteso, tanto vil- 



OF kings' treasuries. 41 

mente, nell' eterno esilio ; " or of him whom Dante 
stood beside, " come '1 frate che confessa lo perMo 
assassin ? "''^ Shakespeare and Alighieri knew men bet- 
ter than most of us, I presume ! They were both in the 
midst of the main struggle between the temporal and 
spiritual powers. They had an opinion, we may guess. 
But where is it ? Bring it into court ! Put Shake- 
speare's or Dante's creed into articles, and send it up 
for trial by the Ecclesiastical Courts ! 

26. You will not be able, I tell you again, for many and 
many a day, to come at the real purposes and teaching 
of these great men ; but a very little honest study of 
them will enable you to perceive that what you took 
for your own " judgment " was mere chance prejudice, 
and drifted, helpless, entangled weed of castaway 
thought : nay, you v/ill see that most men's minds are 
indeed little better than rough heath wilderness, neg- 
lected and stubborn, partly barren, partly overgrown 
with pestilent brakes, and venomous, wind-sown herb- 
age of evil surmise ; that the first thing you have to do for 
them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire 
to this ; burn all the jungle into wholesome ash heaps, 
and then plough and sow. All the true literary work 
* Inf. xsiii. 125, 126 ; xix. 49, 50. 



42 ' SESAME AND LILIES. 

before you, for life, must begin with obedience to that 
order, "Break up your fallow grouud, and soio not 
umong thorns." 

27. II."' Having then faithfully listened to the great 
teachers, that you may enter into their Thoughts, you 
have yet this higher advance to make ; — you have to 
enter into their Hearts. As you go to them first for 
clear siglit, so you must stay with them, that you may 
share at last their just and mighty Passion. Passion, 
or " sensation." I am not afraid of t]ie word ; still less 
of the thing. You have heard many outcries against 
sensation lately ; but, I can tell you, it is not less sen- 
sation we want, but more. The ennobling difference 
between one man and another, — between one animal 
and another, — is precisely in this, that one feels more 
than another. If we were sponges, perhaps sensation 
might not be easily got for us ; if we were earth-worms, 
liable at every instant to be cut in two by the spade, 
perhaps too much sensation might not be good for us. 
But, being human creatures, it is good for us ; nay, we 
are only human in so far as we are sensitive, and our 
honour is precisely in proportion to our passion. 

28. You know I said of that great and pure society of 
the dead, that it would allow " no vain or vulgar person to 

* Compare T[ 13 above. 



} 



OF kings' TEEASUREES. 43 

enter there." Wliatdoyou think I meant by a "vulgar" 
person? What do you yourselves mean by "vulgarity? " 
You will find it a fruitful subject of thought ; but, 
briefly, the essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sen- 
sation. Simple and innocent vulgarity is merely an un- 
trained and undeveloped bluntness of body and mind ; 
but in true inbred vulgarity, there is a deathful callous- 
ness, which, in extremity, becomes capable of every 
sort of bestial habit and crime, without fear, without 
pleasure, without horror, and without pity. It is in 
the blunt hand and the dead heart, in the diseased 
habit, in the hardened conscience, that men become 
vulgar ; they are for ever vulgar, precisely in projjortion 
as they are incapable of sympathy,— of quick under- 
standing, — of all that, in deep insistance on the com- 
mon, but most accurate term, may be called the " tact " 
or " touch-faculty " of body and soul ; that tact which 
the Mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has 
above all creatures ; — fineness and fulness of sensation 
beyond reason; — the guide and sanctifier of reason itself. 
Reason can but determine what is true :— it is the God- 
given passion of humanity which alone can recognize 
what God has made good. 

29. We come then to the great concourse of the Dead, 



44 SESAME AND LILIES. 

not merely to know from tliem what is True, but chiefly 
to feel with them what is just. Now, to feel with 
them, x\Q must be like them ; and none of us can be= 
come that without pains. As the true knowledge is 
disciplined and tested knowledge, — not the first thought 
that comes, — so the true passion is disciplined and 
tested passion, — not the first passion that comes. The 
first that come are the vain, the false, the treacherous ; 
if you yield to them they will lead you wildly and far 
in vain ^^ursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no 
true purpose and no true passion left. Not that any 
feeling possible to humanity is in itself wrong, but only 
wrong when undisciplined. | Its nobility is in its force 
and justice ; it is wrong when it is weak, and felt for 
paltry cause. I There is a mean wonder, as of a child 
who sees a juggler tossing golden balls, and this is base, 
if you will. But do you think that the wonder is igno- 
ble, or the sensation less, with which every human soul 
is called to watch the golden balls of heaven tossed 
through the night by the Hand that made them ? \There 
is a mean curiosity, as of a child opening a forbidden 
door, or a servant prying into her master's business ; — 
and a noble curiosity, questioning, in the front of dan- 
ger, the source of the great river beyond the sand, — the 



I 



OF KINGS TREASUEIES. 45 

place of the great continents beyond the sea ; — a no- 
bler curiosity still, which questions of the source of 
the River of Life, and of the space of the Continent of 
Heaven, — things which "the angels desire to look into." 
So the anxiety is ignoble, with which you linger over 
the course and catastrophe of an idle tale ; but do you 
think the anxiety is less, or greater, with which you 
watch, or ought to watch, the dealings of fate and des- 
tiny with the life of an agonized nation ? Alas ! it is the 
narrowness, selfishness, minuteness, of your sensation 
that you have to deplore in England at this day ; — sen- 
sation which spends itself in bouquets and speeches ; 
in re veilings and junketings ; in sham fights and gay 
puppet shows, while you can look on and see noble na- 
tions murdered, man by man, without an efibrt or a 
tear. 

30. I said " minuteness " and " selfishness " of sensa- 
tion, but in a word, I ought to have said " injustice " or 
^"^ unrighteousness " of sensation. For as in nothing is 
a gentleman better to be discerned from a vulgar per- 
son, so in nothing is a gentle nation (such nations have 
been) better to be discerned from a mob, than in this, 
■ — that their feelings are constant and just, results of 
due contemplation, and of equal thought. You can talk 



46 SESAME AND LILIES. 

a mob into anything ; its feelings may be — usually are 
— on the whole, generous and right ; but it has no foun- 
dation for them, no hold of them ; you may tease or 
tickle it into any, at your pleasure ; it thinks by infec- 
tion, for the most part, catching an opinion like a cold, 
and there is nothing so little that it will not roar itself 
wild about, when the fit is on; — nothing so great but 
it Avill forget in an hour, when the fit is past. But 
a gentleman's or a gentle nation's, passions are just, 
measured and continuous. A great nation, for instance, 
does not spend its entire national wits for a couple of 
months in weighing evidence of a single ruffian's having 
done a single murder ; and for a couple of years see 
its own children murder each other by their thousands 
or tens of thousands a day, considering only what the 
effect is likely to be on the price of cotton, and caring 
noAvise to determine which side of battle is in the wrong. 
Neither does a great nation send its poor little boys to 
jail for stealing six walnuts ; and allow its bankrupts to 
steal their hundreds or thousands with a bow, and its 
bankers, rich with poor men's savings, to close their 
doors " under circumstances over which they have no 
control," with a " by your leave ; " and large landed es- 
tates to be bought by men who have made their money 



OF kings' treasuries. 47 

by going with armed steamers up and down the China 
Seas, selling opium at the cannon's mouth, and altering, 
for the benefit of the foreign nation, the common high- 
wayman's demand of "your money or your life," into 
that of "your money a%c^ your life. ' Neither does a 
great nation allow the lives of its innocent poor to be 
parched out of them by fog fever, and rotted out of them 
by dunghill plague, for the sake of sixpence a life ex- 
tra per week to its landlords f and then debate, with 
drivelling tears, and diabolical sympathies, whether it 
ought not piously to save, and nursingly cherish, the 
lives of its murderers. Also, a great nation having 
made up its mind that hanging is quite the wholesomest 
process for its homicides in general, can yet with mercy 
distinguish between the degrees of guilt in homicides ; 
and does not yelp like a pack of frost-pinched wolf- cubs 
on the blood-track of an unhappy crazed boy, or grey- 
haired clodpate Othello, " perplexed i' the extreme," at 
the very moment that it is sending a Minister of the 
CroAvn to make polite speeches to a man who is bayonet- 
ing young girls iu their father's sight, and killing noble 
youths in cool blood, faster than a country butcher kills 

* b^ee note at end of lecture. I have put it iu large type, because the 
course of matters since it was written has made it perhaps better 
worth attention. 



48 -SESAME AND LILIES. 

lambs in spring. And, lastly, a great nation does not 
mock Heaven and its Powers, by pretending belief in a 
revelation wliicli asserts the love of money to be the 
root of all evil, and declaring, at tbe same time, that it 
is actuated, and intends to be actuated, in all chief na- 
tional deeds and measures, by no other love. 

31. My friends, I do not know why any of us should talk 
about reading. We want some sharper discipline than 
that of reading ; but, at all events, be assured, we can- 
not read. No reading is possible for a people with its 
mind in this state. No sentence of any great writer is 
intelligible to them. It is simply and sternly impos- 
sible for the English public, at this moment, to under- 
stand any thoughtful writing, — so incapable of thought 
has it become in its insanity of avarice. Happily, our 
disease is, as yet, little worse than this incapacity of 
thought ; it is not corruption of the inner nature ; we 
ring true still, when anything strikes home to us ; and 
though the idea that everything should " pay " has in- 
fected our every purpose so deeply, that even when we 
would play the good Samaritan, we never take out our 
twopence and give them to the host, without saying, 
" "When I come again, thou shalt give me fourpence," 
there is a capacity of noble passion left in our hearts' 



OF kings' teeasueees. 49 

core. We show it in our work — in our war, — even in those 
unjust domestic affections which make us furious at a 
small private wrong, while we are polite to a boundless 
public one r^ we are still industrious to the last hour of the 
day, though we add the gambler's fury to the labourer's 
patience ; we are still brave to the death, though inca- 
pable of discerning true cause for battle ; and are still 
true in affection to our own flesh, to the death, as the 
sea-monsters are, and the rock-eagles. And there is 
hope for a nation while this can be still said of it. As 
long as it holds its life in its hand, ready to give it for 
its honour (though a foolish honour), for its love (though 
a selfish love), and for its business (though a base busi- 
ness), there is hope for it. But hope only ; for this in- 
stinctive, reckless virtue cannot last. No nation can 
last, which has made a mob of itself, however generous 
at heart. It must discipline its passions, and direct 
them, or they will discipline it, one day, with scorpion 
whips. Above all, a nation cannot last as a money- 
making mob : it cannot with impunity, — it cannot with 
existence, — go on despising literature, despising science, 
despising art, despising nature, despising compassion, 
and concentrating its soul on Pence. Do you think 
these are harsh or wild words ? Have patience with 



50 SESAME AND LILIES. 

me but a little longer. I will prove their truth to you, 
clause by clause. 

32. I. I say first we have despised literature. What do 
we, as a nation, care about books ? How much do you 
think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or 
private, as compared with what we spend on our horses ? 
If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him 
mad — a biblio-maniac. But you never call any one a 
horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day 
by their horses, and you do not hear of people ruining 
themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how 
much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of 
the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, 
as compared with the contents of its wine-cellars ? 
What position would its expenditure on literature take, 
as compared with its expenditure on luxurious eating ? 
We talk of food for the mind, as of food for the body : 
now a good book contains such food inexhaustibly ; it is 
a provision for life, and for the best part of us ; yet how 
long most people would look at the best book before 
they would give the price of a large turbot for it ! 
Though there have been men who have pinched their ' 
stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose 
libraries v/ere cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than 



OF kings' treasuries. 51 

most men's dinners are. / We are few of us put to sucli 
trial, and more the pity ; for, indeed, a precious thing is 
all the more precious to us if it has been won by work 
or economy ] and if public libraries were half as costly 
as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what 
bracelets do, even foolish men and women might some- 
times suspect there was good in reading, as well as in 
munching and sparkling ; whereas the very cheapness 
of literature is making even wise people forget that if a 
book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is 
worth anything which is not worth 7nucJi ; nor is it ser- 
viceable, until it has been read, and reread, and loved, 
and loved again ; and marked, so that you can refer to 
the passages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the 
weapon he needs in an armoury, or a housewife bring 
the spice she needs from her store, j Bread of flour is 
good : but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would 
eat it, in a good book ; and the family must be poor 
indeed which, once in their lives, cannot, for such multi- 
pliable barley-loaves, pay their baker's bill. We call 
ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish 
enough to thumb each other's books out of circulating 
libraries ! 

33. II. I say we have despised science. "What!" you 



I 

52 SESAME AND LILIES. 

exclaim " are we not foremost in all discovery,* and is 
not tlie whole world giddy by reason, or unreason, of 
our inventions?" Yes; but do you suppose tliat is 
national work ? That work is all done in spite of the 
nation ; by private people's zeal and money. We are 
glad enough, indeed, to make our j)rofit of science ; we 
snap up anything in the way of a scientific bone that 
has meat on it, eagerly enough ; but if the scientific man 
comes for a bone or a crust to us, that is another story. 
What have we publicly done for science ? We are 
obliged to know what o'clock it is, for the safety of our 
ships, and therefore we pay for an observatory ; and we . 
allow ourselves, in the person of our Parliament, to be 
annually tormented into doing something, in a slovenly 
way, for the British Museum ; sullenly apprehending 
that to be a place for keeping stuffed birds in, to amuse 
our children. If anybody will pay for their own telescope, 
and resolve another nebula, we cackle over the discern- 
ment as if it were our own ; if one in ten thousand of our 
hunting squires suddenly perceives that the earth was 
indeed made to be something else than a portion for 

* Since this was written, the answer has become definitely — No ; 
we have surrendered the field of Arctic discovery to the Continental 
nations, as being ourselves too poor to pay for ships. 



OF kings" ^TltEASURIES. 53 

foxes, and burrows in it himself, and tells us whera the 
gold is, and where the coals, we understand that there 
is some use in that ; and very properly knight him : but 
is the accident of his having found out how to employ 
himself usefully any credit to us? (The negation of 
such discovery among his brother squires may perhaps 
be some discnecWi to us, if we would consider of it.) But 
if you doubt these generalities, here is one fact for us 
all to meditate upon, illustrative of our love of science. 
Two years ago there was a collection of the fossils of 
Solenhofen to be sold in Bavaria ; the bast in existence, 
containing many specimens unique for perfectness, and 
one, unique as an example of a species (a whole king- 
dom of unknown living creatures being announced by 
that fossil). This collection, of which the mere market 
worth, among private buyers, would probably have been 
some thousand or twelve hundred pounds, was offered 
to the English nation for seven hundred : but we would 
not give seven hundred, and the whole series would 
have been in the Munich Museum at this moment, if 
Professor Owen * had not, with loss of his own time, and 

* 1 state this fact without Professor Owen's permission : which of 
course he could not with propriety have granted, had I asked it ; but I 
consider it so important that the public should be aware of the fact that 
I do what seems to be right though rude. 



54 SESAME AND LILIES. 

patient tormenting of tlie British public in person of its 
representatives, got leave to give four hundred pounds 
at once, and himself become answerable for the other 
three ! which the said public will doubtless pay him 
eventually, but sulkily, and caring nothing about the 
matter all the while ; only always ready to cackle if any 
credit comes of it. Consider, I beg of you, arithmeti- 
cally, what this fact means. Your annual expenditure 
for public purposes (a third of it for military apparatus), 
is at least fifty millions. Now 700?. is to 50,000,000?. 
roughly, as seven pence to two thousand pounds. Sup- 
pose then, a gentleman of unknown income, but whose 
wealth was to be conjectured from the fact that he spent 
two thousand a year on his park- walls and footmen only, 
professes himself fond of science ; and that one of his 
servants comes eagerly to tell him that an unique col- 
lection of fossils, giving clue to a new era of creation, is 
to be had for the sum of seven pence sterling ; and that 
the gentleman, who is fond of science, and spends two 
thousand a year on his park, answers, after keeping his 
servant waiting several months, " Well ! I'll give you 
four pence for them, if you will bo aiisv/erable for the 
extra three pence yourself, till next year ! " 

34. III. I say you have despised Art ! " What! " you 



OF KINGS TREASURIES. 55 

again answer, " have W3 not Art exliibitions, miles long? 
and do we not pay thousands of pounds for single pic- 
tures? and have we not Art schools and institutions, 
more than ever nation had before ? " Yes, truly, but all 
that is for the sake of the shop. You would fain sell 
canvas as well as coals, and crockery as well as iron ; 
you would take every other nation's bread out of its 
mouth if you could ;"'■ not being able to do that, your 
ideal of life is to stand in the thoroughfares of the world, 
like Ludgate apprentices, screaming to every passer-by, 
"What d'ye lack?" You know nothing of your own 
faculties or circumstanc3S ; you fancy that, among your 
damp, flat, fields of clay, you can have as quick art-fancy 
as the Frenchman among his bronzed vines, or the 
Italian under his volcanic cliffs ; — that Art may be 
learned as book-keeping is, and when learned will give 
you more books to keep. You care for pictures, abso- 
lutely, no more than you do for the bills pasted on your 
dead walls. There is always room on the v/alls for the 
bills to be read, — never for the pictures to be seen. 

' That was our real idea of "Free Trade " — " All the trade to myself." 
You find now that by "competition" other people can manage to sell 
something as well as you — and now we call for Protection again. 
Wretches ! 



56 SESAME AND LILIES. 



I 



You do not know what pictures you have (by repute) 
in the country, nor whether they are false or true, nor 
whether they are taken care of or not ; in foreign coun- 
tries, you calmly see the noblest existing pictures in the 
world rotting in abandoned wreck — (in Venice you saw 
the Austrian guns deliberately pointed at the palaces 
containing them), and if you heard that all the fine pic- 
tures in Europe were made into sand-bags to-morrow 
on the Austrian forts, it would not trouble you so much 
as the chance of a brace or two of game less in your 
own bags, in a day's shooting. That is your national 
love of Art. 

35. IV. You have despised nature ; that is to say, all 
the deep and sacred sensations of natural scenery. The 
French revolutionists made stables of the cathedrals of f 
France ; you have made racecourses of the cathedrals of 
the earth. Your one conception of pleasure is to drive 
in railroad carriages round their aisles, and eat off their I 
altars.* You have put a railroad bridge over the fall of 
Schaffhausen. You have tunnelled the cliffs of Lucerne 



* I meant that the beautiful places of the world— Switzerland, Italy, 
South Germany, and so on — are, indeed, the truest cathedrals — places 
to be reverent in, and to worship in ; and that we only care to drive 
through them ; and to eat and drink at their most sacred places. 



OF kings' treasueies. 57 

hj Tell's chapel ; you have destroyed the Clarens shore 
of the Lake of Geneva ; there is not a quiet valley in 
England that you have not filled with bellowing fire ; 
there is no particle left of English land which you have 
not trampled coal ashes into* — nor any foreign city in 
v;hich the spread of your presence is not marked among 
its fair old streets and happy gardens by a consuming 
white leprosy of new hotels and perfumers' shops : the 
Alps themselves, which your own poets used to love so 
reverently, you look upon as soaped poles in a bear- 
garden, which you set yourselves to climb, and slide 
down again, with " shrieks of delight." When you are 
past shrieking, having no human articulate voice to say 
you are glad with, you fill the quietude of their valleys 
with gunpowder blasts, and rush home, red with cutane- 
ous eruption of conceit, and voluble with convulsive, 
hiccough of self-satisfaction. I think nearly the two 
sorrowfuUest spectacles I have ever seen in humanity, 
taking the deep inner significance of them, are the 
English mobs in the valley of Chamouni, amusing them- 

* I was singialarly struck, some years ago, by finding all the 
river shore at Eichmonil, in Yorkshire, black in its earth, from 
the mere drift of soot-laden air from places many miles away. 



58 SESAME AND LILIES. 

selves with firing rusty howitzers ; and the Swiss vint- 
agers of Zurich expressing their Christian thanks for 
the gift of the vine, by assembling in knots in the " tow- 
ers of the vineyards," and slowly loading and firing 
horse-pistols from morning till evening. It is pitiful to 
have dim conceptions of beauty ; more pitiful, it seems 
to me, to have conceptions like these, of mirth. 

36. Lastly. You despise compassion. There is no need 
of words of mine for proof of this. I will merely print 
one of the newspaper paragraphs which I am in the 
habit of cutting out and throwing into my store-drawer ; 
here is one from a Daily Telegraph of an early date this 
year (1867; ; (date which, though by me carelessly left 
unmarked, is easily discoverable ; for on the back of 
the slip, there is the announcement that " yesterday 
the seventh of the special services of this year was ' 
performed by the Bishop of Ripon in St. Paul's" ;) 
it relates only one of such facts as happen now daily ; 
this, by chance having taken a form in which itj 
came before the coroner. I will print the paragraph in 
red. Be sure, the facts themselves are written in that 
colour, in a book which we shall all of us, literate or ' 
illiterate, have to read our page of, some day. 






OF kings' teeasueies. 59 

"An inquiry was held on Friday by Mr. Richards, 
deputy coroner, at the White Horse Tavern, Christ 
Church, Spitalfields, respecting the death of Michael 
Collins, aged 58 years. Mary Collins, a miserable- 
looking woman, said that she lived with the deceased 
and his son in a room at 2, Cobb's court, Christ Church. 
Deceased was a ' translator ' of boots. T7itness went 
out and bought old boots ; deceased and his son made 
them into good ones, and then witness sold them for 
wliat she could get at the shops, which Avas very little 
indeed. Deceased and his son used to work night and 
day to try and get a little bread and tea, and pay for 
ths room (2.5. a week), so as to keep the home together. 
On Friday night week deceased got up from his bench 
and began to shiver. He threw down the boots, say- 
ing, " Somebody else must finish them when I am gone, 
for I can do no more." There was no fire, and he said, 
"I would be better if I was warm." Witness therefore 
took two jDairs of ti'anslated boots * to sell at the shop, 
but she could only get 14(/. for the two pairs, for the 

* One of the things which we must very resolutely enforce, for the 
good of all classes, in our future arrangements, must be that they wear 
no "translated" articles of dress. See the preface. 



60 SESAME AND LILIES. 

people at the shop said, " We must have our profit." 
Witness got 141b. of coal, and a little tea and bread. 
Her son sat up the whole night to make the " transla- 
tions," to get money, but deceased died on Saturday- 
morning. The family never had enough to eat. — Coroner: 
" It seems to me deplorable that you did not go into the 
workhouse." Witness : " We wanted the comforts of our 
little home." A juror asked what the comforts were, for 
he only saw a little straw in the corner of the room, the 
windows of which were broken. The witness began to 
cry, and said that they had a quilt and other little 
things. The deceased said he never would go into the 
workhouse. In summer, when the season was good, 
they sometimes made as much as 10s. profit in the 
week. They then always saved towards the next week, 
which was gsnerclly a bad one. In winter they made I 
not half so much. For three years they had been 
getting from bad to worse. — Cornelius Collins said that . , 
he had assisted his father since 1847. They used to work 
so far into the night that both nearly lost their eyesight. 
Witness now had a film over his eyes. Five years ago 
deceased applied to the parish for aid. The relieving 
officer gave him a 41b. loaf, and told him if he came 



OF kings' treasuries. 61 

again he should "get the stones."* That disgusted 
deceased, and he woukl have nothing to do with them 
since. They got worse and worse until last Friday 
week, when they had not even a halfpenny to buy a 

"•'■ This abbreviation of the penalty of useless labour is curiously co- 
incident in verbal form with a certain passage which some of us may 
remember. It may perhaps be well to pi'eserve beside this paragraph 
another cutting out of my store-drawer, from the Morning Post, of 
about a parallel date, Friday, March 10th, 1865 : — "The salons of 
Mme. C , who did the honours with clever imitative grace and ele- 
gance, wore crowded with princes, dulies, marquises, and counts — ^in 
fact, with the same male company as one meets at the parties of the 
Princess Metternich and Madame Drouyn de Lhuys. Some English 
peers and members of Parliament were present, and appeared to enjoy 
the animated and dazzlingly improper scene. On the second floor the 
supper tables were loaded with every delicacy of the season. That your 
readers may form some idea of the dainty fare of the Parisian demi- 
monde, I copy the menu of the supper, which was served to all the guests 
(about 200) seated at four o'clock. Choice Yquem, Johannisberg, Laf- 
fitte, Tokay, and Champagne of the finest vintages were served most 
lavislily throughout the morning. After supper dancing was resumed 
with increased animation, and the ball terminated v/ith a cJiame clia- 
bolique and a cancan (Tenfer at seven in the morning. (Morning- 
service — ' Ere the fresh lawns appeared, under the opening eyelids of 
the Morn. — ') Here is the menu : — ' Consomme dc volailie a la Bagra- 
tion ; 16 hors-d'oeuvres varits. BouehLes a la Talleyrand. Saumons 
froids, sauce Ravigote. Filets de ba?uf en BcUevue, timbales milanaises 
chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes truffees. Pates de foies gras, buissons 
d'ecrevisses, saiades vcnetiennes, gek'es blanches aux fruits, gateaux 
mancini, parisiens et pt»risiennes. Fromages glaces Ananas. Dessert." 



62 SESAME AND LILIES. 

candle. Deceased then lay down on the straw, and said 
he could not live till morning. — A juror : "You are dy- 
ing of starvation yourself, and you ought to go into the 
house until the summer." Witness : " If we went in we 
should die. When we come out in the summer we 
should be like people dropped from the sky. No one 
would know us, and we would not have even a roomJ 
I could work now if I had food, for my sight would gel 
better." Dr. G. P. Walker said deceased died from' 
syncope, from exhaustion, from want of food. The de- 
ceased had had no bedclothes. For four months he 
had had nothing but bread to eat. There was not a 
particle of fat in the body. There was no disease, but 
if there had been medical attendance, he might have 
survived the syncope or fainting. The coroner having 
remarked upon the painful nature of the case, the jury 
returned the following verdict, " That deceased died 
from exhaustion from want of food and the comf 

mon necessaries of life ; also through want of medical 

I 
aid." j 

37. " Why would witness not go into the workhouse ? " 

you ask. Well, the poor seem to have a jDrejudice 

against the workhouse which the rich have not ; for of 

course every one who takes a pension from Government 



OF KINGS' TREASURIES. 63 

goes into the workhouse ou a grand scale : * only the 
workhouses for the rich do not involve the idea of work, 
and should be called jjlay-houses. But the poor like 
I to die independently, it appears ; perhaps if we made 
the play-houses for them pretty and pleasant enough, 
or gave them their pensions at home, and allowed them 
a little introductory peculation with the public money, 

i their minds might be reconciled to the conditions. Mean- 

i 

time, here are the facts : we make our relief either so in- 
sulting to them, or so painful, that they rather die than 
take it at our hands ; or, for third alternative, we leave 
them so untaught and foolish that they starve like brute 
creatures, wild and dumb, not knowing what to do, or 
what to ask. I say, you despise compassion ; if you did 
not, such a newspaper paragraph would be as impossible 
in a Christian country as a deliberate assassination per- 
I mitted in its public streets. f " Christian " did I say ? 

* Please observe this statement, and think of it, and consider how 

it happens that a poor old woman will be ashamed to take a shilling 

a week from the country — but no one is ashamed to take a pension of 

a thousand a year. 

f I am heartily glad to see such a paper as the Pall Hall Gazette 

! established ; for the power of the press in the hands of highly-educated 

J men, in independent position, and of honest purpose, may indeed be- 



64 SESAME AND LILIES. 

Alas, if we were but wholesomely 2«2-Christian, it woulc 

come all that it has been hitherto vainly vaunted to be. Its editor vvil 
therefore, I doubt not, pardon me, in that, by very reason of my rcspecti 
for the journal, I do not let pass unnoticed an article in its third num- 
ber, page 5, which was wrong in every word of it, with the intense 
wrongness which only an honest man can achieve who lias taken a false 
turn of thought in the outset, and is following it, regardless of conse- 
quences. It contained at the end this notable passage : — 

"The bread of affliction, and the water of affliction — aye, and the bed- 
steads and blankets of affliction, are the very utmost that the law ought 
to give to outcasts merely as outcasts." I merely put beside this ex- 
pression of the gentlemanly mind of England in 1865, a part of the 
message which Isaiah was ordered to " lift up his voice like a trumpet" 
in declaring to the gentlemen of his day : "Ye fast for strife, and to 
smite with the fist of wickedness. Is not this the fast that I have 
chosen, to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor 
thai are cast out (margin 'afflicted ') to thy house." The falsehood on 
which the writer had mentally founded himself, as previously stated by 
him, was this : "To confound the functions of the dispensers of the 
poor-rates with those of the dispensers of a charitable institution is ^ 
great and pernicious error. " This sentence is so accurately and ex* 
quisitely wrong, that its substance must be thus reversed in our mine 
before we can deal with any existing problem of national distress. " T^ 
understand that the dispensers of the poor-rates are the almoners of th| 
nation, and should d:stribute its alms with a gentleness and freedom ci. 
hand as much greater and franker than that possible to individual 
charity, as the collective national wisdom and power may be supposed 
greater than those of any single person, is the foundation of all law re- 
specting pauperism." (Since this was written the Pall Mall Gazette 
has become a mere party paper — like the rest ; but it writes well, and 
does more good than mischief on the whole.) 



OF kings' tkeasuries. 65 

be impossible : it is our imaginary Christianity tliat 
helps us to commit these crimes, for we revel and lux- 
uriate iu our faith, for the lewd sensation of it ; dress- 
ing it up, like everything else, in fiction. The dramatic 
Christianity of the organ and aisle, of dawn-service and 
twilight-revival — the Christianity which we do not fear 
to mix the mockery of, pictorially, with our play about 
the devil, in our Satanellas, — Eoberts, — Fausts ; chant- 
ing hymns through traceried windows for back-ground 
effect, and artistically modulating the " Dio " through 
variation on variation of mimicked prayer : (while we 
distribute tracts, next day, for the benefit of unculti- 
vated swearers, M-pou what we suppose to be the signi- 
fication of the Third Commandment ;) — this gas-lighted, 
and gas-inspired, Christianity, we are triumphant in, 
and draw back the hem of our robes from the touch of 
the heretics who dispute it. But to do a piece of com- 
mon Christian righteousness in a plain English word 
or deed; to make Christian law any rule of life, and 
found one National act or hope thereon, — we know too 
well what our faith comes to for that! You might 
sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true 
action or passion out of your modern English religion. 
You had better get rid of the smoke, and the organ 



66 SESAME AND LILIES. 

pipes, botli : leave tliem, and tlie Gothic windows, and 
the painted glass, to the property man ; give up youi 
carburetted hydrogen ghost ""iig. one healthy expiation, 
and look after Lazarus at the door-step. For there i 
a true Church wherever one hand meets another help^ 
fully, and that is the only holy or Mother Church whicl 
ever was, or ever shall be. 

38. All these pleasures, then, and all these virtues, ■ 
repeat, you nationally despise. You have, indeed, men 
among you who do not ; by whose work, by whose 
strength, by whose life, by whose death, you live; 
and never thank them. Your wealth, your amuse- 
ment, your pride, would all be alike impossible, buti 
for those whom you scorn or forget. The police-? 
man, who is walking up and down the black lane all 
night to watch the guilt you have created there ; and 
may have his brains beaten out, and be maimed forlife^ 
at any moment, and never be thanked : the sailor wrest- 
ling with the sea's rage ; the quiet student poring over 
his book or his vial ; the common worker, without 
praise, and nearly without bread, fulfilling his task as 
your horses drag your carts, hopeless, and spurned of 
all : these are the men by whom England lives ; but 
they are not the nation ; they are only the body an^ 



4 



OF kings' treasuries. 67 

nervous force of it, acting still from old habit in a 
convulsive perseverance, while the mind is gone. Our 
National wish and purpose are to be amused ; our Na- 
tional religion is the performance of church ceremonies, 
and preaching of soporific truths (or untruths) to keep 
the mob quietly at work, while we amuse ourselves ; 
and the necessity for this amusement is fastening on us 
as a feverous disease of parched throat and wandering 
eyes — senseless, dissolute, "merciless.* 

39. When men are rightly occupied, their amusement 
grows out of their work, as the colour-petals out 
of a fruitful flower ; — when they are faithfully help- 
ful and compassionate, all their emotions become 
steady, deep, perpetual, and vivifying to the soul 
as the natural pulse of the body. But now, hav- 
ing no true business, we pour our whole masculine 
energy into the false business of money-making ; 
and having no true emotion, we must have false emo- 
tions dressed up for us to play with, not innocently, 
as children with dolls, but guiltily and darkly, as the 
idolatrous Jews with their pictures on cavern walls, 

* How literally that word Dis-Ease; the Negation and impossibility 
of Ease, expresses the entire moral state of our English Industry and 
its Amusements. 



68 SESAME AND LILIES. 

wliicli men had to dig to detect. The justice we do not 
execute, we mimic in the novel and on the stage ; for 
the beauty we destroy in nature, we substitute the met- 
amorphosis of the j)antomime, and (the human nature 
of us imperatively requiring awe and sorrow of some 
kind) for the noble grief we should have borne with our 
fellows, and the pure tears we should have wept with 
t]iem, we gloat over the pathos of the police court, and 
gather the night-dew of the grave. 
f. 40. It is difficult to estimate the true significance of ^ 
these things ; the facts are frightful enough; — the meas 
ure of national fault involved in them is perhaps not as . 
great as it would at first seem. We permit, or cause, thou- 
sands of deaths daily, but we mean no harm ; we set fire 
to houses, and ravage peasants' fields ; yet we should 
be sorry to find we had injured anybody. We are still 
kind at heart ; still capable of virtue, but only as 
children are. Chalmers, at the end of his long life, 
having had much power with the public, being plagued 
in some serious matter by a reference to " public oj)in- 
ion," uttered the impatient exclamation, " The public is 
just a great baby ! " And the reason that I have al- 
lowed all these graver subjects of thought to mix them- 
selves up w^ith an inquiry into methods of reading, is 



OF KINCxS' TKEASURIES. 69 

tliat, tlie more I see of our national faults and miseries, 
the more they resolve themselves into conditions of 
childish illiterateness, and want of education in the 
most ordinary habits of thought. It is, I repeat, not 
vice, not selfishness, not dulness of brain, which we have 
to lament ; but an unreachable schoolboy's recklessness, 
only differing from the true schoolboy's in its incapacity 
of being helj)ed, because it acknowledges no master. 

41. There is a curious type of us given in one of the 
lovely, neglected works of the last of our great painters. 
It is a drawing of Kirkby Lonsdale churchyard, and of 
its brook, and valley, and hills, and folded morning sky 
beyond. And unmindful alike of these, and of the 
dead who have left these for other valleys and for other 
skies, a group of schoolboys have piled their little 
books upon a grave, to strike them off with stones. 
So, also, we l)lay with the words of the dead that 
would teach us, and strike them far from us with our 
bitter, reckless will ; little thinking that those leaves 
which the wind scatters had been piled, not only upon 
a gravestone, but upon the seal of an enchanted vault 
— nay, the gate of a great city of sleeping kings, who 
would awake for us, and walk with us, if we knew but 
how to call them by their names. How often, even if 



70 SESAME AND LILIES. 

we lift tlie marble entrance gate, do we but wander 
among those old kings in their repose, and linger the 
robes they lie in, and stir the crowns on their foreheads ; 
and still they are silent to us, and seem but a dusty 
imagery ; because we know not the incantation of the 
heart that would wake them ; — which, if they once 
heard, they would start up to meet us in their power 
of long ago, narrowly to look upon us, and consider us ; 
and, as the fallen kings of Hades meet the newly fallen, 
saying, "Art thou also become weak as we — art thou 
also become one of us ? " so would these kings, with 
their undimmed, unshaken diadems, meet us, saying, 
" Art thou also become pure and mighty of heart as 
we ? art thou also become one of us ? " 

42. Mighty of heart, mighty of mind — " magnanimous" 
— to be this, is indeed to be great in life ; to become ^ 
this increasingly, is, indeed, to "advance in life," — in 
life itself — not in the trappings of it. My friends, do 
you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head 
of a house died? How he was dressed in his finesjt 
dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to his 
friends' houses ; and each of them placed him at his 
table's head, and all feasted in his presence ? Suppose 
it were offered to you, in plain words, as it is offered to 



11 



OF kings' teeasueies. 71 

you in dire facts, that you sliould gain tliis Scythian 
honour, gradually, while you yet thought yourself alive. 
Suppose the offer were this : You shall die slowly ; 
your blood shall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, your 
heart beat at last only as a rusted group of iron valves. 
Your life shall fade from you, and sink through the 
earth into the ice of Caina ; but, day by day, your body 
shall be dressed more gaily, and set in higher chariots, 
and have more orders on its breast — crowns on its 
head, if you wiU. Men shall bow before it, stare and 
shout round it, crowd after it up and down the streets ; 
build palaces for it, feast with it at their tables' heads 
all the night long ; your soul shall stay enough within 
it to know what they do, and feel the weight of the 
golden dress on its shoulders, and the furrow of the 
crown-edge on the skull ; — no more. Would you take 
the offsr, verbally made by the death-angel ? Would 
the meanest among us take it, think you ? Yet prac- 
tically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a 
measure ; many of us grasp at it in its fulness of horror,. 
Every man accepts it, who desires to advance in life 
■without knowing what life is ; who means only that he 
is to get more horses, and more footmen, and more for- 
tune, and more public honour, and — not more personal 



72 SESAME AND LILIES. 

soul. J He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting 
softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose 
spirit is entering into Living* peacei And the men who 
have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the 
earth — they, and they only.j All other kingships, so far 
as they are true, are only the practical issue and expres- 
sion of theirs ; if less than this, they are either dramatic- 
royalties, — costly shows, set off, indeed, with real jewels 
instead of tinsel — but still only the toys of nations ; or 
else, they are no royalties at all, but tyrannies, or the mere 
active and practical issue of national folly ; for which 
reason I have said of them elsewhere, " Visible govern- 
ments are the toys of some nations, the diseases of 
others, the harness of some, the burdens of more." 

43. But I have no words for the wonder with which I 
hear Kinghood still spoken of, even among thoughtful 
men, as if governed nations were a personal property, 
and might be bought and sold, or otherwise acquired, 
as sheep, of whose flesh their king was to feed, and 
whose fleece he was to gather ; as if Achilles' indignant 
epithet of base kings, "people-eating," were the con- 
stant and proper title of all monarchs ; and enlarge- 
ment of a king's dominion meant the same thing as the 
*" to Ss cpp6vT/jua Tov TtvevjLiaroi Zooy m<^i eiprjvi].'^ 



OF KINGS TEEASURIES. 73 

Increase of a private man's estate ! Kings who think 
so, however powerful, can no more be the true kings of 
the nation than gad-flies are the kings of a horse ; they 
suck it, and may drive it wild, but do not guide it. 
They, and their courts, and their armies are, if one 
could see clearly, only a large species of marsh mos- 
quito, with bayonet proboscis and melodious, baud- 
mastered, trumpeting in the summer air ; the twilight 
being, perhaps, sometimes fairer, but hardly more whole- 
some, for its glittering mists of midge companies. The 
true kings, meanwhile, rule quietly, if at all, and hate 
ruling ; too many of them make " il gran refiuto ; " and 
if they do not, the mob, as soon as they are likely to 
become useful to it, is pretty sure to make its " gran 
lifiuto " of tJiem. 

44. Yet the visible king may also be a true one, some 
day, if ever day comes when he will estimate his do- 
minion by the force of it, — not the geographical boun- 
daries. It matters very little whether Trent cuts you a 
cantel out here, or Rhine rounds you a castle less there. 
But it does matter to you, king of men, whether 3-0U 
can verily say to this man, " Go," and he goeth ; and to 
another, "Come," and he cometh. "Whether you can 
turn your people, as you can Trent — and where it is 



74 SESAME AND LILIES. 

that you bid them come, aud where go. It matters to 
you, king of men, whether your peoj)le hate you, and 
die by you, or love you, and live by yoUc You may 
measure your dominion by multitudes better than by 
miles ; and count degrees of love latitude, not from, but 
to, a wonderfully warm and infinite equator. 

45. Measure ! nay you cannot measure. Who shall 
measure the difference between the power of those who 
" do and teach," and who are greatest in the kingdoms of 
earth, as of heaven — and the power of those who undo, 
and consume — whose power, at the fullest, is only the 
power of the moth and the rust ? Strange ! to think how 
the Moth-kings lay up treasures for the moth ; and the 
Rust-kings, who are to their peoples' strength as rust to 
armour, lay up treasures for the rust ; and the Eobber- 
kings, treasures for the robber; but how few kings have 
ever laid up treasures that needed no guarding — treas- 
ures of which, the more thieves there were, the better ! 
Broidered robe, only to be rent ; helm and sword, only 
to be dimmed ; jewel and gold, only to be scattered ; — • 
there have been three kinds of kings who have gathered 
these. Suppose there ever should arise a Fourth order 
of kings, who had read, in some obscure writing of long 
ago, that there was a Fourth kind of treasure, which 



OF king's teeasuries. 75 

the jewel and gold could not equal, neither should it 
be valued with pure gold. A web made fair in the weav- 
ing, by Athena's shuttle ; an armour, forged in divine 
fire by Vulcanian force — a gold to be mined in the sun's 
red heart, where he sets over the Delj)hian cliffs ; 
— deep-pictured tissue, impenetrable armour, potable 
gold ! — the three great Angels of Conduct, Toil, and 
Thought, still calling to us, and waiting at the posts 
of our doors, to lead us, with their winged poAver, 
and guide us, with their unerring eyes, by the path 
which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's 
eye has not seen ! Suppose kings should ever arise, 
who heard and believed this word and at last gathered 
and brought forth treasures of — Wisdom — for their 
people ? 

46. Think what an amazing business that would be ! 
iHow inconceivable, in the state of our present national 
wisdom ! That we should bring up our peasants to a book 
exercise instead of a bayonet exercise ! — organize, drill, 
maintain v/itli pay, and good generalship, armies of 
thinkers, instead of armies of stabbers ! — find national 
p.musement in reading-rooms as well as rifle-grounds ; 
give prizes for a fair shot at a fact, as well as for a 
leaden splash on a target. What an absurd idea it 



76 SESAME AND LILIES. I 

seems, put fairly in words, that the wealth of the capi- 
talists of civilized nations should ever come to support 
literature instead of war ! | 

47. Have yet patience with me, while I read you a single 
sentence out of the onlybook, properly to be called a book, 
that I have yet written myself, the one that will stand, 
(if anything stand,) surest and longest of all work of mine. 

" It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in 
Europe that it is entirely capitalists' wealth which supports 
unjust wars. Just wars do not need so mucli money to sup- 
port them ; for most of the men who wage such, wage them 
gratis ; but for an unjust war, men's bodies and souls have 
both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them be- 
sides, which makes such war costly to the maximum ; not to 
speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between 
nations Avhich have not grace nor honesty enough in all their 
multitudes to buy an hour's peace of mind with ; as, at pres- 
ent France and England, purchasing of each other ten mil- 
lions' sterling worth of consternation, annually (a remarkably 
light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves, sown, reajoed, 
and granaried by the ^science' of the modern political econo- 
mist, teaching covetousness instead of truth). And, all un- 
just war being supportable, if not by pillage of the enemy, 
only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by sub- 
sequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will in 
the matter, the capitalists' will being the primary root of the 
war ; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole nation. 



OP KINGS TEEASUEIES. 



77 



rendering it incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and 
bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss 
and imnishment to each person." 

48. France and England literally, observe, hnj panic of 
each other ; they pay, each of them, for ten thousand- 
thousand-pounds'-worth of terror, a year. Now sup- 
pose, instead of buying these ten millions' worth of 
panic annually, they made up their minds to be at peace 
with each other, and buy ten millions' worth of knowl- 
edge annually ; and that each nation spent its ten thou- 
sand thousand pounds a year in founding royal libraries, 
royal art galleries, roya-1 museums, royal gardens, and 
places o! rest. Might it not be better somewhat for 
both French and English ? 

49. It will be long, yet, before that comes to pass. Nev- 
ertheless, I hope it will not be long before royal or na- 
tional libraries will be founded in every considerable a^Zy, 
with a royal series of books in them ; the same series in 
every one of them, chosen books, the best in every kind, 
prepared for that national series in the most perfect 
way possible ; their text printed all on leaves of equal 
size, broad of margin, and divided into pleasant volumes, 
light in the hand, beautiful, and strong, and thorough 
as examples of binders' work ; and that these great li- 



78 SESAME AND LILIES. 

braries will be accessible to all clean and orderly per- 
sons at all times of the day and evening ; strict law- 
being enforced for this cleanliness and quietness. 

I could shape for 3^ou other plans, for art-galleries, 
and for natural history galleries, and for many precious 
— many, it seems to me, needful — things ; but this book 
plan is the easiest and needfullest, and would prove a 
considerable tonic to what we call our British, constitu- 
tion, which has fallen dropsical of late, and has an evil 
thirst, and evil hunger, and wants healthier feeding. 
You have got its corn laws repealed for ic ; try if you 
cannot get corn laws established for it, dealing in a bet- 
ter bread ; — bread made of that old enchanted Arabian 
grain, the Sesame, which opens doors ; — doors, not of 
robbers' , but of Kings' Treasuries. 

50. Note to If 30. — Kespecting the increase of rent by 
the deaths of the poor, for evidence of which, see the 
preface to the Medical officer's report to the Privy 
Council, just published, there are suggestions in its 
preface which will make some stir among us, I fancy, 
respecting which let me note these points following : — 

There are two theories on the subject of land now 
abroad, and in contention ; both false. 

The first is that, by Heavenly law, there have always 



OP kings' treasuries. 79 

existed, and must coutinue to exist, a certain number of 
hereditarily sacred persons to whom the earth, air, and 
water of the world belong, as personal property ; of which 
earth, air, and water, these persons may, at their pleas- 
ure, permit, or forbid, the rest of the human race to eat, 
breathe, or to drink. This theory is not for many years 
longer tenable. The adverse theory is that a division 
of the land of the world among the mob of the world 
would immediately elevate the said mob into sacred 
personages ; that houses would then build themselves, 
and corn grow of itself ; and that everybody would be 
able to live, without doing any work for his living. 
This theory would also be found highly untenable in 
practice. 

It will, however, require some rough experiments, 
and rougher catastrophes, before the generality of per- 
sons will be convinced that no law concerning any- 
thing, least of all concerning land, for either holding or 
dividing it, or renting it high, or renting it low — would 
be of the smallest ultimate use to the people — so 
long as the general contest for life, and for the means 
of life, remains one of mere brutal competition. That 
contest, in an unprincipled nation, will take one deadly 
form or another, whatever laws you make against it. 



80 SESAME AND LILIES. 

For instance, it would be an entirely wholesome law for 
England, if it could be carried, that maximum limits 
should be assigned to incomes according to classes ; and 
that every nobleman's income should be paid to him as 
a fixed salary or pension by the nation ; and not 
squeezed by him in variable sums, at discretion, out of 
the tenants of his land. But if you could get such a 
law passed to-morrow, and if, which would be farther 
necessary, you could fix the value of the assigned in- 
comes by making a given weight of pure bread for a 
given sum, a twelve-month would not pass before an- 
other currency would have been tacitly established, and 
the power of accumulative wealth would have re-asserted 
itself in some other article, or some other imaginary I 
sign. I There is only one cure for public distress — and 
that is public education, directed to make men thought- 
ful, merciful, and just. There are, indeed, many laws 
conceivable which would gradually better and strengthen 
the national temper ; but, for the most part, they are 
such as the national temper must be much bettered be- i 
fore it would bear. A nation in its youth may be helped • 
by laws, as a weak child by backboards, but when it is 
old it cannot that way straighten its crooked spine. 
And besides ; the problem of land, at its worst, is a ! 



OF KINGS' TREASUEIES. 81 

bye one ; distribute the eartli as you v/ill, tlie principal 
question remains inexorable, — WIio is to dig it ? "Wliicli 
of us, in brief words, is to do the hard and dirty work for 
the rest — and for what pay ? Who is to do the pleasant 
and clean work, and for what pay ? Who is to do no work, 
and for what pay ? And there are curious moral and 
religious questions connected with these. How far is 
it lawful to suck a joortion of the soul out of a great 
many persons, in order to put the abstracted j^sychical 
quantities together and make one very beautiful or ideal 
soul? If we had to deal with mere blood, instead of 
spirit, (and the thing might literally be done — as it has 
been done with infants before now) — so that it were 
possible by taking a certain quantity of blood from the 
arms of a given number of the mob, and putting it all 
into one person, to make a more azure-blooded gentle- 
man of him, the thing would of course be managed ; but 
secretly, I should conceive. But now, because it is 
brain and soul that we abstract, not visible blood, it 
can be done quite openly, and we live, we gentlemen, on 
delicatest prey, after the manner of weasels ; that is to 
say, we keep a certain number of clowns digging and 
ditching, and generally stupefied, in order that we, 
being fed gratis, may have all the thinking and feeling 



82 SESAME AND LILIES. 

to ourselves. Yet there is a great deal to be said for 
this. A highly-bred and trained English, French, Aus- 
trian, or Italian gentleman (^much more a lady), is a 
great production, — a better production than most 
statues ; being beautifully coloured as well as shaped, 
and plus all the brains ; a glorious thing to look at, a 
wonderful thing to talk to ; and you cannot have it, any 
more than a pyramid or a church, but by sacrifice of 
much contributed life. And it is, perhaps, better to 
build a beautiful human creature than a beautiful dome 
or steeple — and more delightful to look up reverently 
to a creature far above us, than to a wall ; only the 
beautiful human creature will have some duties to do in 
return — duties of living belfry and rampart — of which 
presently. 



LECTUEE II.— LILIES. 



OP QUEENS GAEDENS. 



"Bo thou glad, oh thirsting Desert; let the desert be made eheerlul; 
and bloom as the lily; and the barren places of Jordan sliall run wild 
■with wood ." — Isaiah 85, i . (Septuagint .) 

51. It will, perhaps, be well, as this Lecture is the sequel 
of one previously given, that I should shortly state to 
you my general intention in both. The questions spe- 
cially proposed to you in the first, namely, How and What 
to Read, rose out of a far deeper one, which it was my 
endeavour to make you propose earnestly to yourselves, 
namely, WJ7y to Bead. I want you to feel, with me, 
that whatever advantages we possess in the present day 
in the diffusion of education and of literature, can only 
be rightly used by any of us when we have apprehended 
cloarly what education is to lead to, and literature to 
teach. I wish you to see that both well-directed moral 
training and well-chosen reading lead to the possession 
of a power over the ill-guided and illiterate, which is, 
according to the measure of it, in the truest sense, 
Idngly ; conferring indeed the purest kingship tJiat can 

enist among men : too many other kingships (however 

83 



b-i SESAME AND LILIES. 

distinguished by visible insignia or material power)l 
being either spectral, or tyrannous ; — Spectral — that is 
to say, aspects and shadows only of royalty, hollow as 
death, and which only the " Likeness of a kingly crown 
have on ; " or else tyrannous — that is to say, substi- 
tuting their own will for the law of justice and love by 
which all true kings rule. 

52. There is, then, I repeat — and as I want to leave this 
idea with you, I begin with it, and shall end with it — 
only one pure kind of kingship ; an inevitable and eter- 
nal kind, crowned or not : the kingship, namely, which 
consists in a stronger moral state, and a truer thoughtful 
stats, than that of others ; enabling you, therefore, to 
guide, or to raise them. Observe that word " State ; " 
we have got into a loose way of using it. It means lit- 
erally the standing and stability of a thing ; and you 
have the full force of it in the derived word " statue " — 
" the immoveable thing." A king's majesty or " state," 
then, and the right of his kingdom to be called a state, i 
depends on the movelessness of both : — without tremor, 
without quiver of balance ; established and enthroned 
upon a foundation of eternal law which nothing can 
alter, nor overthrow. 

53. Believins that all literature and all education are 



OF queens' gaedens. 85 

only useful so far as they tend to confirm this calm, 
beneficent, and therefore kingly, power — first, over our- 
selves, and, through ourselves, over all around us, I am 
now going to ask you to consider with me farther, what 
special portion or kind of this royal authority, arising 
out of noble education, may rightly be possessed by 
women ; and how far they also are called to a true 
queenly power. Not in their households merely, but 
over all within their sphere. And in what sense, if 
they rightly understood and exercised this royal or gra- 
cious influence, the order and beauty induced by such 
benignant power would justify us in speaking of the 
territories over which each of them reigned, as " Queens' 
Gardens." 

54. And here, in the very outset, we are met by a far 
deeper question, which — strange though this may seem 
— remains among many of us yet quite undecided, in 
spite of its infinite importance. 

"We cannot determine what the queenly power of 
women should be, until we are agreed what their ordi- 
nary power should be. We cannot consider how educa- 
tion may fit them for any widely extending duty, until 
we are agreed what is their true constant duty. And 
there never was a time when wilder words were spoken, 



86 SESAME AND LILIES. 

or more vain imagination permitted, respecting this 
question — quite vital to all social happiness. The rela- 
tions of the womanly to the manly nature, their different 
capacities of intellect or of virtue, seem never to have 
been yet estimated with entire consent. We hear of the 
"mission" and of the "rights" of Woman, as if these 
could ever be separate from the mission and the rights 
of Man ; — as if she and her lord were creatures of inde- 
pendent kind, and of irreconcileable claim. This, at 
least, is wrong. And not less wrong — perhaps even 
more foolishly wrong (for I will anticipate thus far what 
I hope to prove) — is the idea that woman is only the 
shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him a 
thoughtless and servile obedience, and supported alto- 
gether in her weakness, by the pre-eminence of his 
fortitude. 

This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respecting 
her who was made to be the helpmate of man. As if he 
could be helped effectively by a shadow, or worthily by 
a slave ! 

55. Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at some clear 
and harmonious idea (it must be harmonious if it is true) 
of what womanly mind and virtue are in power and 
office, with respect to man's ; and hov/ their relations, 



OP queens' gaedens. 87 

riglitly accepted, aid, and increase, the vigour, and 
honour, and autliority cf botli. 

And now I must rej^cat one thing I said in tlie last 
lecture : namely, that the first use of education was to 
enable us to consult with the wisest and the greatest men 
on all points of earnest difficulty. That to use books 
rightly, was to go to them for help : to aj^peal to them, 
when our own knowledge and power of thought failed : 
to be led by them into wider sight, — purer conception — 
than our own, and receive from them the united sen- 
tence of the judges and councils of all time, against our 
solitary and unstable opinion. 

Let us do this now. Let us see whether the greatest, 
the wisest, the purest-hearted of all ages are agreed in 
any wise on this point : let us hear the testimony they 
have left respecting what they held to be the true dig- 
nity of woman, and her mode of help to man. 

56. And first let us take Shakespeare. 

Note broadly in the outset, Shakespeare has no li3- 
roes ; — he has only heroines. There is not one entirely 
heroic figure in all his plays, except the sliglit sketch of 
Henry the Fifth, exaggerated for the purposes of tlie 
stage ; and the still slighter Valentine in The Two 
Gentlemen of Yerona. In his laboured and perfect 



SESAME AND LILIES. 



! 



plays you liave no hero. Othello would have beon one, 
if his simplicity had not been so great as to leave him 
the prey of every base practice round him ; but he is 
the only example even approximating to the heroic type. 
Coriolanus — Caesar — Antony, stand in flawed strength, 
and fall by their vanities ; — Hamlet is indolent, and 
drowsily speculative ; Eomeo an impatient boy ; the 
Merchant of Venice languidly submissive to adverse for- 
tune ; Kent, in King Lear, is entirely noble at heart, 
but too rough and unpolished to be of true use at the 
critical time, and he sinks into the office of a servant 
only. Orlando, no less noble, is yet the despairing toy 
of chance, followed, comforted, saved, by Rosalind. 
Whereas there is hardly a play that has not a perfect 
woman in it, steadfast in grave hope, and errorless pur- 
pose : Cordelia, Desdemona, Isabella, Hermione, Imo- 
gen, Queen Katherine, Perdita, Sylvia, Viola, Rosalind, I 
Helena, and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all 
faultless : conceived in the highest heroic type of hu- | 
manity. I 

57. Then observe, secondly, 

The catastrophe of every play is caused al^^ays by 
the folly or fault of a man ; the redemption, if there be | 
any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman, and fail- ' 



OF QUEENS GARDENS. 89 

ing that, tliere is none. The catastrophe of King Lear 
is owing to his own want of judgment, his impatient 
vanity, his misunderstanding of his children ; the virtue 
of his one true daughter would have saved him from all 
the injuries of the others, unless he had cast her away 
from him ; as it is, she all but saves him. 

Of Othello I need not trace the tale ; — nor the one 
weakness of his so mighty love ; nor the inferiority of 
his perceptive intellect to that even of the second 
woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in wild 
testimony against his error : — " Oh, murderous coxcomb ! 
What should such a fool Do with so good a wife? " 

In Romeo and Juliet, the wise and brave strata- 
gem of the wife is brought to ruinous issue by the 
reckless impatience of her husband. In Winter's Tale 
and in Cymbeline, the happiness and existence of two 
princely households, lost through long years, and im- 
perilled to the death by the folly and obstinacy of the 
husbands, and redeemed at last by the queenly patience 
and wisdom of the wives. In Measure for Measure, the 
foul injustice of the judge, and the foul cowardice of the • 
brother, are opposed to the victorious truth and ada- 
mantine purity of a woman. In Coriolanus, the mother's 
counsel, acted upon in time, would have saved her son ' 
from all evil ; his momentary forgetfulness of it is his 



90 SES-VME AND LILIES. 

ruin ; her prayer at last granted, saves liim — not, indeed, 
from death, but from the curse of living as the destroyer 
of his country. 

And what shall I say of Julia, constant against the 
fickleness of a lover who is a mere wicked child ? — of 
Helena, against the petulance and insult of a careless 
youth? — of the jjatieuce of Hero, the passion of Bea- 
trice, and the calmly devoted wisdom of the " unlessonod 
girl," who appears among the helplessness, the blind- 
ness, and the vindictive passions of men, as a gentle 
angel, bringing courage and safety by her presence, and 
defeating the worst malignities of crime by what women 
are fancied most to fail in, — precision and accuracy of 
thought. 

58. Observe, further, among all the principal figures in 
Shakespeare's plays, there is only one weak woman- 
Ophelia ; and it is because she fails Hamlet at the crit- 
ical moment, and is not, and cannot in her nature be, a 
guide to him when he needs her most, that all the bitter 
catastrophe follows. Finally, though there are three 
wicked women among the principal figures. Lady 
Macbeth, Regan, and Goneril, they are felt at once to bo i 
frightful exceptions to the ordinary laws of life ; fatal in 
their influence also in proportion to the power for gooJj 
which they have abandoned. 



OF queens' gardens. 91 

Sucli, in broad light, is Shakespeare's testimony to 
the position and character of women in human life. He 
represents them as infallibly faithful and wise counsel- 
lors, — incorruptibly just and pure examples — strong 
always to sanctify, even when they cannot save. 

59. Not as in any wise comparable in knowledge of the 
nature of man, — still less in his understandinsf of the 
causes and courses of fate, — but only as the writ3r who 
has given us the broadest view of the conditions and 
modes of ordinary thought in modem society, I ask you 
next to receive the witness of Walter Scott. 

I put aside his merely romantic prose writings as of 
no value : and though the early romantic poetry is very 
beautiful, its testimony is of no weight, other than that 
of a boy's ideal. But his true works, studied from 
Scottish life, bear a true witness ; and, in the whole range 
of these, there are but three men who reach the heroic 
type'-'" — Dandie Dinmont, Rob Roy, and Claverhouse : 

* I ought, in order to make this assertion fully understood, to have 
noted the various weaknesses which lower the ideal of other great 
characters of men in the Waverley novels — the selfishness and narrow- 
ness of thought in Hedgauntlet, the weak religious enthusiasm in 
Edward Glendinning, and the like ; and I ought to have noticed that 
there are several quite perfect characters sketched sometimes in the 
backgrounds ; three — let us accept joyously this courtesy to England 



92 SESAME AND LILIES. 

of these, one is a border farmer ; another a freebooter ; 
the third a soldier in a bad cause. And these touclj 
the ideal of heroism only in their courage and faith^ 
together with a strong, but uncultivated, or mistakenly? 
applied, intellectual power ; while his younger men arg 
the gentlemanly playthings of fantastic fortune, and only 
by aid (or accident) of that fortune, survive, not van-* 
quish, the trials they involuntarily sustain. Of any 
disciplined, or consistent character, earnest in a purpose 
wisely conceived, or dealing with forms of hostile evil, 
definitely challenged, and resolutely subdued, there is no 
trace in his conceptions of young men. Whereas in his 
imaginations of women, — in the characters of Ellen 
Douglas, of Flora Maclvor, Kose Bradwardine, Cathe- 
rine Seyton, Diana Yernon, Lilias Eedgauntlet, Alice 
Bridgenorth, Alice Lee, and Jeanie Deans, — with end- 
less varieties of grace, tenderness, and intellectual power 
we find in all a quite infallible and inevitable sense 
of dignity and justice ; a fearless, instant, and untiring 
self-sacrifice to even the appearance of duty, much more 
to its real claims ; and, finally, a patient wisdom of 
deeply restrained affection, which does infinitely more 

and her soldiers — are English officers : Colonel Gardiner, Colonal Talbot, 
and Colonel Mannering. 



OF queens' gardens. 93 

than protect its objects from a momentary error; it 
gradually forms, animates, and exalts the characters of 
the unworthy lovers, until, at the close of the tale, we 
are just able, and no more, to take patience in hearing 
of their unmerited success. 

So that, in all cases, with Scott as with Shakespeare, 
it is the woman who watches over, teaches, and guides 
the youth ; it is never, by any chance, the youth who 
watches over, or educates his mistress. 

60. Next, take, though more briefly, graver testimony 
— that of the great Italians and Greeks. You know 
well the plan of Dante's great poem — that it is a 
love poem to his dead lady ; a song of praise for her 
watch over his soul. Stooping only to pity, never to 
love, she yet saves him from destruction — saves him 
from hell. He is going eternally astray in despair ; she 
comes down from heaven to his help, and throughout the 
ascents of Paradise is his teacher, interpreting for him 
the most difficult truths, divine and human, and leading 
him, with rebuke upon rebuke, from star to star. 

I do not insist upon Dante's conception ; if I began I 
could not cease : besides, you might think this a wild 
imagination of one poet's heart. So I will rather read 
to you a feAv verses of the deliberate writing of a knight 



94 SESAME AND LILIES. 

of Pisa to his living lady, wholly characteristic of the 
feeling of all the noblest men of the thirteenth, or early 
fourteenth century, preserved among many other such 
records of knightly honour and love, wliich Dante Ros- 
setti has gathered for us from among the early Italian 
poets. 

*' For lo ! thy law is passed 
That this my love should manifestly be 

To serve and honour thee : 
And so I do ; and my delight is full. 
Accepted for the servant of thy rule. 

" Without almost, I am all rapturous. 
Since thus my will was set 
To serve, thou flower of joy, thine excellence : 
Nor ever seems it anything could rouse 
A pain or regret, 
But on thee dwells mine every thought and sense 
Considering that from thee all virtues spread 

As from a fountain head, — 3 

That in tliy gift is tvisdoni's lest avail, 

And honour without fail; 
With whom each sovereign good dwells separate. 
Fulfilling the perfection of thy state. 

" Lady, since I conceived ' 

Thy pleasurable aspect in my heart. 

My life has heen apart 
In shining brightness and the place of truth ; 



OF queens' gardens. 95 

Which till that time, good sooth, 
Groped among shadows in a darken'd place. 

Where many hours and days 
It hardly ever had remember'd good. 

But now my servitude 
Is thine, and I am full of joy and rest. 

A man from a wild beast 
Thou inadest me, since for thy love I lived. 

61. You may think, perhaps, a Greek knight would 
have had a lower estimate of women than this Christian 
lover. His spiritual subjection to them was indeed not so 
absolute ; but as regards their own personal character, 
it was only because you could not have followed me so 
easily, that I did not take the Greek women instead of 
Shakespeare's ; and instance, for chief ideal types of 
human beauty and faith, the simple mother's and wife's 
heart of Andromache ; the divine, yet rejected wisdom 
of Cassandra ; the playful kindness and simple princess- 
life of happy Nausicaa; the housewifely calm of that ot 
Penelope, with its watch upon the sea ; the ever patient, 
fearless, hopelessly devoted piety of the sister, and 
daughter, in Antigone ; the bowing down of Ijohigenia, 
lamb-like and silent ; and, finally, the expectation of 
the resurrection, made clear to the soul of the Greeks 
in the return from her grave of that Alcestis, who, to 



96 SESAME AND LILIES. 

save lier husband, had passed calmly through the bit- 
terness of death. 

62. Now I could multiply witness upon witness of this 
kind upon you if I had time. I would take Chaucer, 
and show you why he wrote a Legend of Good Women ; 
but no Legend of Good Men. I would take Spenser,| 
and show you how all his fairy knights are sometimes 
deceived and sometimes vanquished ; but the soul of 
Una is never darkened, and the spear of Britomart isl 
never broken. Nay, I could go back into the mythical] 
teaching of the most ancient times, and show you how 
the great people, — by one of whose princesses it was 
appointed that the Lawgiver of all the earth should be 
educated, rather than by his own kindred ; — how that 
great Egyptian people, wisest then of nations, gave to' 
their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a woman ; and into 
her hand, for a symbol, the weaver's shuttle ; and how the 
name and the form of that spirit, adopted, believed, and 
obeyed by the Greeks, became that Athena of the olive- 
helm, and cloudy shield, to faith in whom you owe, 
down to this date, whatever you hold most precious in 
art, in literature, or in types of national virtue. 

63. But I will not wander into this distant and mythical 
element ; I will only ask you to give its legitimate value 
to the testimony of these great poets and men of the 



I 



OF queens' gardens. 97 

world, — consistent as you see it is, on tliis head. I will 
ask you whether it can be supposed that these men, in 
the main work of their lives, are amusing themselves 
with a fictitious and idle view of the relations between 
man and woman ; — nay, worse than fictitious or idle ; for 
a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable, if it were pos- 
sible : but this, their ideal of women, is, according to 
our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly unde- 
sirable. The woman, we say, is not to guide, nor even 
to think, for herself. The man is always to be the wiser ; 
he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the superior in knowl- 
edge and discretion, as in powar. 

64 Is it not somewhat important to make up our minds 
on this matter ? Are all these great men mistaken, or are 
we? Are Shakespeare and ^Eschylus, Dante and Homer, 
merely dressing dolls for us ; or, worse than dolls, unnat- 
ural visions, the realization of which, were it possible, 
would bring anarchy into all households and ruin into all 
affections y Nay, if you could suppose this, take lastly the 
evidence of facts, given by the human heart itself. In all 
Christian ages which have been remarkable for their puri- 
ty or progress, there has been absolute yielding of obedient 
devotion, by the lover, to his mistress. I say obedient; — 
not merely enthusiastic and worshipping in imagination, 
but entirely subject, receiving from the beloved woman, 



98 SESAME AND LILIES. 

however young, not only the encouragement, the praise, 
and the reward of all toil, but so far as any choice is 
open, or any question difficult of decision, the direction 
of all toil. That chivalry, to the abuse and dishonour 
of which are attributable primarily whatever is cruel in 
war, unjust in peace, or corrupt and ignoble in domestic 
relations ; and to the original purity and power of which 
we owe the defence alike of faith, of law, and of love ; — 
that chivalry, I say. in its very first conception of hon- 
ourable life, assumes the subjection of the young knight 
to the command— should it even be the command in 
caprice — of his lady. It assumes this, because its mas- 1 
ters knew that the first and necessary impulse of every ' 
truly taught and knightly heart is this of blind service 
to its lady ; that where that true faith and captivity are 
not, all wayward and wicked passions must be ; and 
that in this rapturous obedience to the single love of 
his youth, is the sanctification of all man's strength, and 
the continuance of all his purposes. And this, not be- 
cause such obedience would be safe, or honourable, 
were it ever rendered to the unworthy; but because it; 
ought to be impossible for every noble youth — it is 
impossible for every one rightly trained— to love any 
one whose gentle counsel he cannofc trust, or whose 
prayerful command he can hesitate to obey. 



OP queens' gardens. 99 

65. I do not insist hj any farther argument on this, for 
I think it should commend itself at once to your knowl= 

I do not insist by any farther argument on this, for I 
think it should commend itself at once to your knowl- 
edge of what has been and to your feelings of what 
should be. You cannot think that the buckling on of 
the knight's armour by his lady's hand was a mere ca- 
price of romantic fashion. It is the type of an eternal ' 
truth — that the soul's armour is never well set to the 
heart unless a woman's hand has braced it ; and it is 
only when she braces it loosely that the honour of man- 
hood fails. Know you not those lovely lines — I would 
they were learned by all youthful ladies of England : — 

" Ah, wasteful woman ! — she who may 
On her sweet self set her own jn-ice. 
Knowing he cannot choose but pay — 
How has she cheapen'd Paradise ! 
How given for nought her priceless gift. 
How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine. 
Which, spent with due, respective thrift, 
Had made brutes men, and men divine ! " * 

Q6. Thus much, then, respecting the relations of lovers I 

=i= Coventry Patmore. You canuot read him too often or too carefully; 
as far as I know he is the only living poet who always strengthens and 
purifies; the others sometimes darken, and nearly always depress and 
dis^eourage, the imagination they deeply seize. 



100 SESAME AND LILIES. 

believe you will accept. But wliat we too often doubt 
is the fitness of tlie continuance of such a relation 
throughout the whole of human life* We think it right 
in the lover and mistress, not in the husband and wife. 
That is to say, we think that a reverent and tender duty 
is due to one whose affection we still doubt, and whose 
character we as yet do but partially and distantly dis- 
cern ; and that this reverence and duty are to be with- 
drawn, when the affection has become wholly and limit- 
lessly our own, and the character has been so sifted and 
tried that we fear not to entrust it with the happiness 
of our lives. Do you not see how ignoble this is, as 
well as how unreasonable ? Do you not feel that mar- 
riage,— when it is marriage at all, — is only the seal which 
marks the vowed transition of temporary into untiring 
service, and of fitful into eternal love ? 

67. But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding 
function of the woman reconcileable with a true wifely 
subjection? Simply in that it is a guiding, not a deter- 
mining, function. Let me try to show you briefly how 
these powers seem to be rightly distinguishable. 

We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speak- 
ing of the " superiority " of one sex to the other, as if 
they could be compared in similar things. Each has ' 



OF queens' gardens. 101 

what the other has not : each completes the other, and 
is completed by the other : they are in nothing alike, 
and the happiness and perfection of both depends on 
each asking and receiving from the other what the other 
only can give. 

68. Now their separate characters are briefly thess. 
The man's power is active, progressive-, defensive. He is 
eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the de- 
fender. His intellect is for speculation and invention ; 
his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest, 
wherever war is just, wherever conquest necessary. But 
the woman's power is for rule, not for battle, — and her 
intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet 
ordering, arrangement and decision. She sees the qual- 
ities of things, their claims, and their places. Her great 
function is Praise : she enters into no contest, but in- 
fallibly judges the crown of contest. By her office, and 
place, she is protected from all danger and temptation. 
The man, in his rough work in open world, must en- 
counter all peril and trial : — to him, therefore, must be the 
failure, the offence, the inevitable error : often he must 
be wounded, or subdued ; often misled ; and alivays har- 
dened. But he guards the woman from all this ; within 
his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought 



102 SESAlVm A^^D LILIES. 

it, need enter no clanger, no temptation, no cause of 
error or offence. This is the true nature of home — it 
is the place of Peace ; the shelter, not only from all in^ 
jury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far 
as it is not this, it is not home : so far as the anxieties 
of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-^ 
minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the 
outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to 
cross the threshold, it ceases to be home ; it is then 
only a part of that outer world which you have roofed 
over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred 
place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched 
over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may 
come but those whom they can receive with love, — so 
far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a no- 
bler shade and light, — shade as of the rock in a weary 
land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea ; — 
so far it vindicates the name, and fulfils the praise, of 
home. 

[And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always 
round her. The stars only may be over her head ; the 
glow-worm in the night-cold grass may be the only fire 
at her foot : but home is yet wherever she is ; and for 
a noble woman it stretches far round her, better than 



OF queens' gardens. 103 

ceiled with, cedar, or painted witli vermilion, shedding 
its quiet light far, for those who else were homeless. 

69. This, then, I believe to be, — will you not admit it 
to be, — the woman's true place and power ? But do not 
you see that to fulfil this, she must — as far as one can 
use such terms of a human creature — be incapable of 
error ? So far as she rules, all must be right, or nothing 
is. Sh3 must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; in- 
stinctively, infallibly wise — wise, not for self-develop- 
ment, but for self-renunciation : wise, not that she may 
set herself above her husband, but that she may never 
fail from his side : wise, not with the narrowness of 
insolent and loveless pride, but with the passionate 
gentleness of an infinitely variable, because infinitely 
applicable, modesty of service — the true changefulness 
of woman. In that great sense — " La donna e mobile," 
not " Qual pium' al vento ; " no, nor yet "Variable as the 
shade, by the light quivering aspen made ; " but variable 
as the Ufjht, manifold in fair and serene division, that it 
may take the color of all that it falls upon, and exalt ito 

70. II. I have been trying, thus far, to show you 
what should be the place, and what the power of woman. 
Now, secondly, we ask. What kind of education is to fit 
her for these ? 



104 SESAME AND LILIES. 

And if you indeed tliink this a true conception of hei 
office and dignity, it will not be difficult to trace the 
course of education which would fit her for the one, and 
raise her to the other. 

The first of our duties to her — no thoughtful persons 
now doubt this, — is to secure for her such physical 
training and exercise as may confirm her health, and 
perfect her beauty, the highest refinement of that beauty 
being unattainable without splendor of activity and of 
delicate strength. To perfect her beauty, I say, and 
increase its power ; it cannot be too powerful, nor shed 
its sacred light too far : only remember that all physical 
freedom is vain to produce beauty without a correspond- 
ing freedom of heart. There are two passages of that 
poet who is distinguished, it seems to me, from all 
others — not by power, but by exquisite righfness — which 
point you to the source, and describe to you, in a few 
syllables, the completion of womanly beauty. I will 
read the introductory stanzas, but the last is the one I 
wish you specially to notice : — 

" Three years she grew in sun and shower. 

Then Nature said, ' A lovelier flower 

On earth was never sown. 



OF queens' gaedens. 105 

This child I to myself will take ; 
8he shall be mine, and I will make 
A lady of my own. 

"^ Myself will to my darling be 
Both laAV and impulse ; and with me 

The girl, in rock and plain. 
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower. 
Shall feel an overseeing power 

To kindle, or restrain. 

* The floating clouds their state shall lend 
To her ; for her the willow bend ; 

Nor shall she fail to see 
Even in the motions of the storm 
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 
By silent sympathy. 

' And vital feelings of delight 
Shall rear her form to stately height, 

Her virgin bosom swell. 
Such tliouglits to Lucy I will give, 
While she and I together live, 

Here in this happy dell." * 

'■'Vital feelings of delight," observe. There are deadly 
feelings of delight ; but the natural ones are vital, 
necessary to very life. 

* Observe, it is "Nature" who is speaking throughout, and who 

says, 

" While she and I together live." 



106 SESAJVrE AND LILIES. 

And they must be feelings of delight, if they are to 
be vital. Do not think yon can make a girl lovely, if 
you do not make her happy. There is not one restraint i 
you put on a good girl's nature — there is not one check 
you give to her instincts of affection or of effort — which 
will not be indelibly written on her features, with a 
hardness which is all the more painful because it takes 
away the brightness from the eyes of innocence, and the 
charm from the brow of virtue. 

71. This for the means : now note the end. Take 
from the same poet, in two lines, a perfect description 
of womanly beauty — 

" A countenance in which did meet 
Sweet records, promises as sweet." 

The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can 
only consist in that majestic peace, which is founded in 
the memory of happy and useful years, — full of sweet 
records ; and from tlie joining of this with that yet more 
majestic childishness, which is still full of change and 
promise ; — opening always — modest at once, and bright, 
with hope of better things to be won, and to be be- 
stowed. There is no old age where there is still that 
Droraise. 



OF queens' gardens. 107 

72. Thus, then, you have first to mould her physical 
frame, and then, as the strength she gains will permit 
you, to fill and temper her mind with all knowledge and 
thoughts which tend to confirm its natural instincts of 
justice, and refine its natural tact of love. 

All such knowledge should be given her as may ena- 
ble her to understand, and even to aid, the work of men : 
and yet it should be given, not as knowledge, — not as if it 
were, or could be, for her an object to know ; but only 
to feel, and to judge. It is of no moment, as a matter 
of pride or perfectness in herself, whether she knows 
many languages or one ; but it is of the utmost, that she 
should be able to show kindness to a stranger, and to 
understand the sweetness of a stranger's tongue. It is 
of no moment to her own worth or dignity that she 
should be acquainted with this science or that ; but it 
is of the highest that she should be trained in habits of 
accurate thought ; that she should understand the mean- 
ing, the inevitableness, and the loveliness of natural laws ; 
and follow at least some one path of scientific attainment, 
as far as to the threshold of that bitter Valley of Hu- 
miliation, into which only the wisest and bravest of men 
can descend, owning themselves forever children, gath- 
ering pebbles on a boundless shore. It is of little 
5* 



108 SESAME AND LILIES. 

consequence how many positions of cities slie knows, 
or how many dates of events, or names of celebrated 
persons — it is not the object of education to turn a 
woman into a dictionary ; but it is deeply necessary 
that she should be taught to enter with her whole 
personality into the history she reads ; to picture the 
passages of it vitally in her own bright imagination ; to 
apprehend, with her fine instincts, the pathetic circum- 
stances and dramatic relations, which the historian too 
often only eclipses by his reasoning, and disconnects by 
his arrangement : it is for her to trace the hidden equi- 
ties of divine reward, and catch sight, through the 
darkness, of the fateful threads of woven fire that con- 
nect error with its retribution. But, chiefly of all, she 
is to be taught to extend the limits of her sympathy 
with respect to that history which is being for her de- 
termined as the moments pass in which she draws her 
peaceful breath : and to the contemporary calamity, 
which, were it but rightly mourned by her, would recur 
no more hereafter. She is to exercise herself in imagin= 
ing what would be the effects upon her mind and con- 
duct, if she were daily brought into the presence of the 
suffering which is not the less real because shut from 
her sight. She is to be taught somewhat to understand 



OF queens' gaedens. 109 

the notliingness of the proportion which that little world 
in which she lives and loves, bears to the world in which 
God lives and loves ; — and solemnly she is to be taught 
to strive that her thoughts of piety may not be feeble in 
proportion to the number they embrace, nor her prayer 
more lansruid than it is for the momentarv relief from 
pain of her husband or her child, when it is uttered for 
the multitudes of those who have none to love them, — • 
and is, " for all who are desolate and oppressed." 

73. Thus far, I think, I have had your concurrence; per- 
haps you will not be with me in what I believe is most 
needful for me to say. There is one dangerous science 
for women — one which they must indeed beware how 
they profanely touch — that of theology. Strange, and 
miserably strange, that while they are modest enough 
to doubt their powers, and pause at the threshold of 
sciences where every step is demonstrable and sure, they 
will plunge headlong, and without one thought of in- 
competency, into that science in which the greatest men 
have trembled, and the wisest erred. Strange, that they 
will complacently and pridefully bind up whatever vice 
or folly there is in them, whatever arrogance, petulance, 
or blind incomprehensiveness, into one bitter bundle of 
consecrated myrrh. Strange, in creatures born to be 



110 SESAME AND LILIES. 

Love visible, that wliere tliey can know least, tliey will 
condemn first, and tliink to recommend themselves to 
their Master, by scrambling up the steps of His judgment 
throne, to divide it with Him. Strangest of all, that they 
should think they were led by the Spirit of the Com- 
forter into habits of mind which have become in them 
the unmixed elements of home discomfort; and that 
they dare to turn the Household Gods of Christian- 
ity into ugly idols of their own ; — spiritual dolls, for 
them to dress according to their caprice ; and from 
which their husbands must turn away in grieved con- 
tempt, lest they should be shrieked at for breaking 
them. 

74. I believe then, with this exception, that a girl's edu- 
cation shouldbe nearly, in its course and raaterialof study, 
the same as a boy's ; but quite differently directed. A 
woman, in any rank of life, ought to know whatever her 
husband is likely to know, but to know it in a different 
way. His command of it should be foundational and 
progressive ; hers, general and accomplished for daily 
and helpful use. Not but that it would often be wiser 
in men to learn things in a womanly sort of way, for 
present use, and to seek for the discipline and training 
of their mental powers in such branches of study as will 



OF queens' gardens. Ill 

be afterwards fittest for social service ; bul:, speaking 
broadly, a man ought to know any language or science 
he learns, thoroughly — while a woman ought to know 
the same language, or science, only so far as may enable 
lier to sympathise in her husband's pleasures, and in 
those of his best friends. 

\t 75. Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy as far as she 
reaches. There is a wide difference between element- 
ary knowledge and superficial knowledge — between a 
firm beginning, and an infirm attempt at compassing. 
A woman may always help her husband by what she 
knows, however little ; by what she half-knows, or mis- 
knows, she will only teaze him. 

And indeed, if there were to be any difference be« 
tween a girl's education and a boy's, I should say that 
of the two the girl should be earlier led, as her intellect 
ripens faster, into deep and serious subjects : and that 
her range of literature should be, not more, but less 
frivolous ; calculated to add the qualities of patience and 
seriounness to her natural poignancy of thought and 
quickness of wit ; and also to keep her in a lofty and 
pure element of thought. I enter not now into any 
question of choice of books ; only let us be sure that her 
books are not heaped up in her lap as they fall out of 



112 SESAME AND LILIES. 

the package of the circulating library, wet with the last 
and lightest spray of the fountain of folly. 

76. Or even of the fountain of wit ; for with respect to 
that sore tem23tation of novel-reading, it is not the bad- 
ness of a novel that we should dread, so much as its over- 
wrought interest. The weakest romance is not so stupi- 
fying as the lower forms of religious exciting literature, 
and the worst romance is not so corrupting as false 
history, false philosophy, or false political essays. But 
the best romance becomes dangerous, if, by its excite- 
ment, it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, 
and increases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance 
with scenes in which we shall never be called upon to 
act. 

77. I speak therefore of good novels only ; and our mod- 
ern literature is particularly rich in types of such. Well 
read, indeed, these books have serious use, being nothing 
less than treatises on moral anatomy and chemistry ; 
studies of human nature in the elements of it. But I 
attach little weight to this function : they are hardly 
ever read with earnestness enough to permit them to 
fulfil it. The utmost they usually do is to enlarge 
somewhat the charity of a kind reader, or the bitterness 
of a malicious one ; for each will gather, from the novel, 



f 



OF QUEENS GARDENS. 113 

food for iier own disposition. Those who are naturally 
proud and envious will learn from Thackeray to despise 
humanity ; those who are naturally gentle, to pity it ; 
those who are naturally shallow, to laugh at it. So, 
also, there might be a serviceable power in novels to 
bring before us, in vividness, a human truth which we 
had before dimly conceived ; but the temptation to pic- 
turesqueness of statement is so great, that often the 
best writers of fiction cannot resist it ; and our views 
are rendered so violent and one-sided, that their vitality 
is rather a harm than good. 

78. Without, however, venturing here on any attempt 
at decision how much novel-reading should be allowed, 
let me at least clearly assert this, that whether novels, or 
poetry, or history be read, they should be chosen, not 
for their freedom from evil, but for their possession of 
good. The chance and scattered evil that may here and 
there haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful book, never does 
any harm to a noble girl ; but the emptiness of an author 
oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades her. And if 
she can have access to a good library of old and classical 
books, there need be no choosing at all. Keep the 
modern magazine and novel out of your girl's way : turn 
her loose into the old library every wet day, and lefc her 



114 SESAME AND LILIES. 

alone. Slie will find what is good for her ; you cannot: 
for there is just this difference between the making of 
a girl's character and a boy's — you may chisel a boy 
into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, 
if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. 
But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She 
grows as a flower does, — she will wither without sun ; 
she will decay in her sheath, as the narcissus will, if 
you do not give her air enough ; she may fall, and defile 
her head in dust, if you leave her without help at some 
moments of her life ; but you cannot fetter her ; she 
must take her own fair form and way, if she take any, 
and in mind as in body, must have always 

*' Her household motions light and free 
And stejJS of virgin liberty." j 

Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in 
a field. It knows the bad weeds twenty times bettar 
than you ; and the good ones too, and will eat some ; 
bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you had not' 
the slightest thought would have been so. 

79. Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and 
let her practice in all accomplishments be accurate and 
thorough, so as to enable her to understand more than 



OF queens' gardens. 115 

slie accomplishes. I say the finest models — that is 
to say, the truest, simplest, usefullest. Note those epi- 
thets ; they will range through all the arts. Try them 
in music, where you might think them the least applic- 
ahle. I say the truest, that in which the notes most 
closely and faithfully express the meaning of the words, 
or the character of intended emotion ; again, the sim- 
j)lest, that in which the meaning and melody are attained 
with the fewest and most significant notes possible ; and, 
finally, the usefullest, that music which makes the best 
words most beautiful, which enchants them in our mem- 
ories each with its own glory of sound, and which ap- 
plies them closest to the heart at the moment we need 
them. 

80. And not only in the material and in the course, but 
yet more earnestly in the spirit of it, let a girl's educa- 
tion be as serious as a boy's. You bring up your girls 
as if they were meant for sideboard ornament, and then 
complain of their frivolity. Give them the same advan- 
tages that you give their brothers — appeal to the same 
grand instincts of virtue in them ; teach them, also, that 
courage and truth are the pillars of their being: — do you 
think that they would not answer that appeal, brave and 
true as they are even now, when you know that there is 



116 SESAME AND LILIES. 

hardly a girl's school in this Christian kingdom where 
the children's courage or sincerity would be thought of 
half so much importance as their way of coming in at a 
door ; and when the whole system of society, as respects 
the mode of establishing them in life, is one rotten 
plague of cowardice and imposture — cowardice, in not 
daring to let them live, or love, except as their neigh- 
bours choose ; and imposture, in bringing, for the pur- 
pose of our own pride, the full glow of the world's worst 
vanity upon a girl's eyes, at the very period when the 
whole haj)piness of her future existence depends upon 
her remaining undazzled ? 

81. And give them, lastly, not only noble teachings, 
but noble teachers. You consider somewhat, before you 
send your boy to school, what kind of a man the master 
is ; — whatsoever kind of a man he is, you at least give him 
full authority over your son, and show some respect for 
him yourself ; — if he comes to dine with you, you do not 
pat him at a side table : you know also that, at his col- 
lege, your child's immediate tutor will be under the 
direction of some still higher tutor, for whom you have 
absolute reverence. You do not treat the Dean of Christ 
Church or the Master of Trinity as your inferiors. 

But what teachers do you give your girls, and what 



OF queens' gaedens. 117 

reverence do jou show to the teachers you have chosen ? 
Is a girl likely to think her own conduct, or her own 
intellect, of much importance, when you trust the entire 
formation of her character, moral and intellectual, to a 
person whom you let your servants treat with less re- 
spect than they do your housekeeper (as if the soul of 
your child were a less charge than jams and groceries), 
and whom you yourself think you confer an honour upon 
by letting her sometimes sit in the drawing-room in the 
evening ? 

82. Thus, then, of literature as her help, and thus of art. 
There is one more help which we cannot do without — ■ 
one which, alone, has sometimes done more than all 
other influences besides, — the help of wild and fair na- 
ture. Hear this of the education of Joan of Arc : — 

"The education of this poor girl was mean according to 
the present standard ; was ineffably grand, according to a 
purer pliilosophic standard ; and only not good for our age, 
because for us it would be unattainable. * * * 

"Next after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to 
the advantages of her situation. The fountain of Domremy 
was on the brink of a boundless forest ; and it was haunted 
to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest (cure) was 
obliged to read mass there once a year, in order to keep them 
in any decent bounds. * * * 



118 SESAME AND LILIES. 

" But tlie forests of Domremy — tliose were the glories of the 
land ; for in them abode mysterious powers and ancient se- 
crets that towered into tragic strength. ' Abbeys there were_, 
and abbey windows,' — ' like Moorish temples of the Hindoos/' 
that exercised even princely power both in Touraine and in 
the German Diets. These had their sweet bells that pierced 
the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each 
its own dreamy legend. Few enougli, and scattered enough, 
were these abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep 
solitude of the region ; yet many enough to spread a network 
or awning of Christian sanctity over what else might have 
seemed a heathen wilderness." * 

Now, you cannot, indeed, have here in England, woods 
eighteen miles deep to the centre ; but you can, perhaps, 
keep a fairy or two for your children yet, if you wish to 
keep them. But do you wish it ? Suppose you had 
each, at the back of your houses, a garden large enough 
for your children to play in, with just as much lawn as 
would give them room to run, — no more— and that you 
could not change your abode ; but that, if you chose, 
you could double your income, or quadruple it, by dig- 1 
ging a coal shaft in the middle of the lawn, and turning | 
the flower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you do it ? 

* "Joan of Arc: in reference to M. Michelet's History of France." 
De Quincey's Works. Vol. iii. p. 217. 



OP queens' gardens. 119 

I hope not. I can tell you, you would be wrong if you 
did, thougli it gave you income sixty-fold instead of 
four-fold. 

83. Yet this is wliat you are doing witli all England. 
The wliole country is but a little garden, not more than 
enough for your children to run on the lawns of, if you 
would let them all run there. And this little garden 
you will turn into furnace-ground, and fill with heaps of 
cinders, if you can ; and those children of yours, not 
you, will suffer for it. For the fairies will not be all ban- 
ished ; there are fairies of the furnace as of the wood, 
and their first gifts seem to be " sharj) arrows of the 
mighty ; " but their last gifts are " coals of juniper." 

84. And yet I cannot —though there is no part of my sub- 
ject that I feel more — press this upon you; for we made 
so little use of the power of nature while we had it that 
we shall hardly feel what we have lost. Just on the 
other side of the Mersey you have your Snowdon, and 
your Menai Straits, and that mighty granite rock be- 
yond the moors of Anglesea, splendid in its heatherly 
crest, and foot planted in the deep sea, once thought of 
as sacred — a divine promontory, looking westward ; the 
Holy Head or Headland, still not without awe when its 
red light glares first through storm. These are the hills, 



120 



SESAME AND LTLIES. 



and these the bays and blue inlets, which, among the 
Greeks, would have been always loved, always fateful in 
influence on the national mind. That Snowdon is your 
Parnassus ; but where are its Muses ? That Holyhead 
mountain is your Island of ^gina, but where is its 
Temple to Minerva? 

85. Shall I read you what the Christian Minerva had 
achieved under the shadow of our Parnassus, up to the 
year 1848 ? — Here is a little account of a Welsh school, 
from page 261 of the report on Wales, published by the 
Committee of Council on Education. This is a school 
close to a town containing 5,000 persons : — 

" I then called np a larger class, most of whom had re- 
cently come to the school. Three girls repeatedly declared 
they had never heard of Christ, and two that they had never 
heard of God. Two out of six thought Christ was on earth 
now (Hhey might have had a worse thought, perhaps'); 
three knew nothing about the crucifixion. Four out of 
seven did not know the names of the months, nor the 
number of days in a year. They had no notion of addition 
beyond two and two, or three and three ; their minds were 
perfect blanks." 

Oh, ye women of England ! from the Princess of that 
Wales to the simplest of you, do not think your own 



OF queens' gaedens. 121 

ehildren can be brought into their true fold of rest 
while these are scattered on the hills, as sheep having 
no shepherd. And do not think your daughters can be 
trained to the truth of their own human beauty, while 
the pleasant places, which God made at once for their 
school-room and their play-ground, lie desolate and 
defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly in those inch- 
deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them also in the 
sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth 
for ever from the rocks of your native land — waters 
which a Pagan would have worshipped in their purity, 
and you only worship with pollution. Tou cannot lead 
your children faithfully to those narrow axe-hewn church 
altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven — 
the mountains that sustain your island throne, — moun- 
tains on which a Pagan would have seen the powers of 
heaven rest in every wreathed cloud — remain for you 
without inscription ; altars built, not to, but by, an Un- 
known God. 

86. III. Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the 
teaching, of woman, and thus of her household office, 
and queenliness. We come now to our last, our widest 
question, — What is her queenly office with respect to 
the state ? 



122 SESAME AND LLIIES. 

Generally we are under an impression that a man's 
duties are public, and a woman's private. But this is 
not altogether so. A man has a personal work or duty, 
relating to his own home, and a public \vork or duty, 
which is the expansion of the other, relating to the state. 
So a woman has a personal work and duty, relating to 
her own home, and a public work and duty, which is also 
the expansion of that. 

Now the man's work for his own home is, as has been 
said, to secure its maintenance, progress, and defence ; 
the woman's to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness. 

Expand both these functions. The man's duty, as a 
member of a commonwealth, is to assist in the mainte- 
nance, in the advance, in the defence of the state. The 
woman's duty, as a member of the commonwealth, is to 
assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in the 
beautiful adornment of the state. 

What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need 
be, against insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but 
in a more devoted measure, he is to be at the gate of 
his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to the 
spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there. 

And, in like manner, what the woman is to be within 
her gates, as the centre of order, the balm of distress, 



OF queens' gaedens. 123 

and tlie mirror of beauty ; that she is also to be without 
her gates, where order is more difficult, distress more 
imminent, loveliness more rare. 

And as within the human heart there is always set an 
instinct for all its real duties, — an instinct which jou 
cannot quench, but only warp and corrupt if you with- 
draw it from its true purpose ; — as there is the intense 
instinct of love, which, rightly disciplined, maintains all 
the sanctities of life and, misdirected, undermines them ; 
and must do either the one or the other ; — so there is in 
the human heart an inextinguishable instinct, the love of 
power, which, rightly directed, maintains all the majesty 
of law and life, and misdirected, wrecks them. 

87. Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of 
man, and of the heart of woman, God set it there, and 
God keeps it there. Vainly, as falsely, you blame or 
rebuke the desire of power ! — For Heaven's sake, and 
for Man's sake, desire it all you can. But tvliat power ? 
That is all the question. Power to destroy? the lion's 
limb, and the dragon's breath? Not so. | Power to 
heal, to redeem, to guide, and to guard. Power of the 
sceptre and shield ; the power of the royal hand that 
heals in touching, — that binds the fiend and looses the 
captive ; the throne that is founded on the rock of Jus- 



124 



SESAME AND LILIES. 



tice, and descended from only by steps of mercy. Will 
you not covet sucli power as this, and seek such throne 
as this, and be no more housewives, but queens ?^ 

88. It is now long since the women of England arro= 
gated, universally, a title which once belonged to nobility 
only, and, having once been in the habit of accepting the 
simple title of gentlewoman, as correspondent to that 
of gentleman, insisted on the privilege of assuming the 
title of " Lady,"* which properly corresponds only to 
the title of "Lord." 

I do not blame them for this ; but only for their nar- 
row motive in this. I would have them desire and 
claim the title of Lady, provided they claim, not merely 
the title, but the office and duty signified by it. Lady 
means "bread-giver" or "loaf-giver," and Lord means 
"maintainer of laws," and both titles have reference, 
not to the law which is maintained in the house, nor to 
the bread which is given to the household ; but to law 

* 1 wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our English 
youth of certain ranks, in which both boy and girl should receive, at a 
given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true title ; attainable only 
by certain probation and trial both of character and accomplishment ; 
and to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of any dishonorable 
act. Such an institution would be entirely, and with all noble results, 
possible, in a nation which loved honour. That it would not be possible 
among us is not to the discredit of the scheme. 



OF queens' gardens. 125 

maintained for the multitude, and to bread broken 
amonsf the multitude. So that a Lord has lesal claim 
only to his title in so far as he is the maintainor of the 
justice of the Lord of Lords; and a Lady has legal 
claim to her title, only so far as she communicates that 
help to the poor representatives of her Master, which 
women once, ministering to Him of their substance, 
were permitted to extend to that Master Himself ; and 
when she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking 
of bread. 

89. And this beneficent and lecral dominion, this pov^er 
of the Dominus, or House Lord, and of the Domina, or 
House-Lady, is great and venerable, not in the number 
of those through whom it has lineally descended, but in 
the number of those whom it grasps within its sway ; 
it is always regarded with reverent worship wherever 
its dynasty is founded on its duty, and its ambition co- 
relative with its beneficence. Your fancy is pleased 
with the thouc:ht of beinor noble ladies, with a train of 
vassals. Be it so : you cannot be too noble, and your 
train cannot be too great ; but see to it that your train 
is of vassals whom you serve and feed, not merely of 
slaves who serve and feed you ; and that the multitude 
w hich obeys you is of those whom you have comforted. 



I 
126 SESAME AND LILIES. ^ 

not oppressed, — whom you liave redeemed, not led into 
, captivity. 

(^ 90. And this, which is true of the lower or household 
dominion, is equally true of the queenly dominion ; — • 
that highest dignity is open to you, if you will also ac- 
cept that highest duty. Rex et Regina — Roi et Reine j 
— '' BigJit-doera;'' th.ej differ but from the Lady and 
Lord, in that their power is supreme over the mind as 
over the person — that they not only feed and clothe, 
but direct and teach. And whether consciously or not, 
you must be, in many a heart, enthroned : there is no 
putting by that crown ; queens you must always be ; 
queens to your lovers ; queens to your husbands and 
your sons ; queens of higher mystery to the world be- 
yond, Avliich bows itself, and will for ever bow, before 
the myrtle crown, and the stainless sceptre, of woman- 
hood. But, alas! you are too often idle and careless 
queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while 
you abdicate it in the greatest ; and leaving misrule and 
violence to work their will among men, in defiance of 
the power, v/hich, holding straight in gift from the 
Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you betray, and 
the good forget. 

91. " Prince of Peace." Note that name. When kings 



OF queens' gaedsns. 127 

rule in tliat name, and nobles, and the judges of the 
eaitlj, they also, in their narrow place, and mortal meas- 
ure, receive the power of it. There are no other rulers 
than they : other rule than theirs is but misvule ; they 
who govern verily "Dei gratia" are all princes, yes, or 
princesses, of peace. There is not a v^ar in the world, 
no, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for 
it ; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have 
not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone to fight ; 
they will fight for any cause, or for none. It is for you 
to choose their cause for them, and to forbid them when 
there is no cause. There is no suffering, no injustice, 
no misery in the earth, but the guilt of i; lies with 
you. Men can bear the sight of it, but you should 
not be able to bear it. Men may tread it down without 
sympathy in their own struggle ; but men are feeble in 
sympathy, and contracted in hope ; it is you only who 
can feel the depths of pain ; and conceive the way of its 
healing. Instead of trying to do this, you turn away 
from it ; you shut yourselves within your park walls 
and garden gates ; and you are content to know that 
there is beyond them a whole world in wilderness — a 
world of secrets which you dare not penetrate ; and oi 
suffering which you dare not conceive. 



128 SESAME AND LILIES. 

92. I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing 
among the phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at 
no depths to which, when once warped from its honour, 
that humanity can be degraded. I do not wonder at 
the miser s death, with his hands, as they relax, drop- 
ping gold. I do not wonder at the sensualist's life, with 
the shroud wrapped about his feet. I do not wonder at 
the single-handed murder of a single victim, done by 
the assassin in the darkness of the railway, or reed- 
shadow of the marsh. I do not even wonder at the 
myriad-handed murder of multitudes, done boastfully 
in the daylight, by the frenzy of nations, and the im- 
measurable, unimaginable guilt, heaped up from hell to 
heaven, of their priests, and kings. But this is won- 
derful to me— oh, how wonderful ! — to see the tender 
and delicate woman among you, with her child at her 
breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, a-nd 
over its father, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger 
than the seas of earth — nay, a magnitude of blessing 
which her husband would not part with for all that 
earth itself, though it were made of one entire and per= 
feet chrysolite : — to see her abdicate this majesty to 
play at precedence with her next-door neighbor ! This 
is wonderful — oh, wonderful ! — to see her, with every 



OF queens' gaedens. 129 

innocent feeling fresh witliin lier, go out in the morning 
into her garden to play with the fringed of its guarded 
■flowers, and lift their heads when they are drooping, 
with her happy smile upon her face, and no cloud upon 
her brow, because there is a little wall around her place 
of peace : and yet she knows, in her heart, if she would 
only look for its knowledge, that, outside of that little 
rose-covered wall, the wild grass, to the horizon, is torn 
up by the agony of men, and beat level by the drift of 
their life-blood. 

93. Have you ever considered what a deep under mean- 
ing there lies, or at least may bo read, if we choose, in 
our custom of strewing flowers before those whom we 
think most happy ? Do you suppose it is merely to 
deceive them into the hope that happiness is always to 
fall thus in showers at their feet ? — that wherever they 
pass they will tread on herbs of sweet scent, and that 
the rough ground will be made smooth for them by 
depth of roses ? So surely as they believe that, they 
will have, instead, to walk on bitter herbs and thorns ; 
and the only softness to their feet will be of snow. But 
it is not thus intended they should believe ; there is a 
better meaning in that old custom. The path of a good 
woman is indeed strewn with flowers : but they rise be 



130 SESAME AND LILIES. 

liind her steps, not before tliem. " Her feet have touched 
the meadows, and left the daisies rosy." 

94. You think that only a lover's fancy ; — false and 
vain ! How if it could be true ? You think this also, 
perhaps, only a poet's fancy — r 

" Even the light harebell raised its head I 

Elastic from her airy tread." 

But it is little to say of a woman, that she only does not 
destroy where she passes. She should revive ; the hare- 
bells should bloom, not stoop, as she passes. You think 
I am rushing into wild hyperbole ? Pardon me, not a 
whit — I mean what I say in calm English, spoken in 
resolute truth. You have heard it said — (and I believe 
there is more than fiincy even in that saying, but let it 
pass for a fanciful one) — that flowers only flourish 
rightly in the garden of some one who loves them. I 
know you would like that to be true ; you would think 
it a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into 
brighter bloom by a kind look upon them : nay, more, 
if your look had the power, not only to cheer, but to 
guard them ; — if you could bid the black blight turn 
away, and the knotted caterpillar spare — if you could 



OF queens' gakdens. 131 

bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, and say to 
the south wind, in frost — " Come, thou south, and 
breathe upon my garden, that the spices of it may flow 
out." This you would think a great thing? And do 
you think it not a greater thing, that all this (and how 
much more than this !) you can do, for fairer flowers 
than these — flowers that could bless you for having 
blessed them, and will love you for having loved 
them ; — flowers that have thoughts like yours, and 
lives like yours ; which, once saved, you save for ever ? 
Is this only a little power '? Ear among the moorlands 
and the rocks, — far in the darkness of the terrible 
streets, — these feeble florets are lying, with all their 
fresh leaves torn, and their stems broken — will you 
never go down to them, nor set them in order in their 
little fragrant beds, nor fence them in their trembling 
from the fierce wind ? Shall morning follow morning, 
for you, but not for them ; and the dawn rise to watch, 
far away, those frantic Dances of Death ; * but no dawn 
rise to breathe upon these living banks of wild violet, 
and woodbine, and rose ; nor call to you, through 
your casement,— call (not giving you the name of the 
English poet's lady, but the name of Dante's great Ma- 
* See note, p. 57. 



132 SESAME AND LILIES. 



tilda, wlio on tlie edge of happy Lethe, stood, wreathing 
flowers with flowers,), saying : — 

" Come into the garden, Maud, 
For the black bat, night, has flown. 
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad 
And the musk of the roses blown ? " 

Will you not go down among them ? — among those 
sweet living things, whose new courage, sprung from the 
earth with the deep colour of heaven upon it, is start- 
ing up in strength of goodly spire ; and whose purity, 
washed from the dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the 
flower of promise ; — and still they turn to you, and for 
you, " The Larkspur listens — I hear, I hear ! And the 
Lily whispers — I wait." 

95. Did you notice that I missed two lines when I 
read you that first stanza ; and think that I had forgot- ' 
ten them ? Hear them now : — 

" Come into tlie garden, Maud, 
For the black bat, night, has flown. 
Come into the garden, Maud, ' 

I am here at the gate, alone." 

Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this 
sweeter garden, alone, waiting for you ? Did you ever 



OF queens' gaedens. 133 

hear, not of a Maude, but a Madeleine, wlio went down 
to her garden in the dawn, and found one waiting at the 
gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener ? Have 
you not sought Him often ; — sought Him in vain, all 
through the night; — sought Him in vain at the gate 
of that old garden where the fiery sword is set ? He is 
never there ; but at the gate of this garden He is waiting 
always — waiting to take your hand — ready to go down 
to see the fruits of the valley, to see whether the vine 
has flourished, and the pomegranate budded. There 
you shall see with Him the little tendrils of the vines 
that His hand is guiding — there you shall seethe pome- 
granate springing where His hand cast the sanguine 
seed ; - — more : you shall see the troops of the angel 
keepers, that, with their wings, wave away the hungry 
birds from the pathsides where He has sown, and call 
to each other between the vineyard rows, " Take us the 
foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines 
have tender grapes." Oh — you queens — you queens ; 
among the hills and happy greenwood of this land of 
yours, shall the foxes have holes, and the birds of the 
air have nests ; ^ndi in your cities, shall the ston^iss cry 
out against you, that they are the only pillows where 
the Son of Man can lay His head ? 



LECTURE in. 

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 

Lecture delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Science, ' 
Dublin, 1868. | 

96. When I accepted the privilege of addressing you 
to-day, I was not aware of a restriction with respect to 
the topics of discussion which may be brought before 
this Society- — a restriction which, though entirely 
wise and right under the circumstances contemplated 
in its introduction, would necessarily have disabled me, 
thinking as I think, from preparing any lecture for you 
ou the subject of art in a form v/hich might be perma- 
nently useful. Pardon me, therefore, in so far as I must 
transgress such limitation ; for indeed my infringement 
will be of the letter — not of the spirit — of your com- 
mands. In whatever I may say touching the religion, 
which has been the foundation of art, or the policy 
which has contributed to its power, if I offend one, I 
shall offend all ; for I shall take no note of any separa- 
tions in creeds, or antagonisms in parties : neither do I 

* That no reference should be made to religious questions. 
134 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS AETS. 135 

fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving — or 
at least stating as capable of positive proof — the con- 
nection of all that is best in the crafts and arts of 
man, with the simplicity of his faith, and the sincerity 
of his patriotism. 

97. But I speak to you under another disadvantage, 
by which I am checked in frankness of utterance, not 
here only, but everywhere ; namely, that I am never 
fidly aware how far my audiences are disposed to give 
me credit for real knowledge of my subject, or how far 
they grant me attention only because I have been some- 
times thought an ingenious or pleasant essayist upon it. 
For I have had what, in many respects, I boldly call 
the misfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily to- 
gether ; not without a foolish vanity in the poor knack 
that I had of doing so ; until I was heavily punished 
for this pride, by finding that many people thought of 
the words only, and cared nothing for their meaning. 
Happily, therefore, the power of using such pleasant 
language — if indeed it ever were mine — is passing away 
from me ; and whatever I am now able to say at all, I 
find myself forced to say with great plainness. For ray 
thoughts have changed also, as my words have ; and 
whereas in earlier life, what little influence I obtained 



136 SESAME AND LILIES. 

was due perhaps cliiefly to the enthusiasm with which 
I was able to dwell on the beauty of the physical clouds, 
and of their colours in the sky ; so all the influence I now 
desire to retain must be due to the earnestness with 
which I am endeavouring to trace the form and beauty 
of another kind of cloud than those ; the bright cloud,! 
of which it is written — 

" What is your life ? It is even as a vapour that ap- 
peareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." 

98. I suppose few people reach the middle or latter 
period of their age, without having, at some moment of 
change or disappointment, felt the truth of those bitter 
words ; and been startled by the fading of the sunshine 
from the cloud of their life, into the sudden agony of 
the knowledge that the fabric of it was as fragile as a 
dream, and the endurance of it as transient as the dew.|| 
But it is not always that, even at such times of melan- 
choly surprise, we can enter into any true perception 
that this human life shares, in the nature of it, not only 
the evanescence, but the mystery of the cloud ; that its 
avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and 
courses no less fantastic, than spectral and obscure ; so 
that not only in the vanity which we cannot grasp, but 
in the shadow which we cannot pierce, it is true of this 



MYSTERY OF LITE AND ITS ARTS. 137 

cloudy life of ours, that " man walketh in a vain shadow, 
and disquieteth himself in vain." 

99. And least of all, whatever may have been the 
eagerness of our passions, or the height of our jjride, 
are we able to understand in its depth the third and 
most solemn character in which our life is like those 
clouds of heaven ; that to it belongs not only their tran- 
sience, not only their mystery, but also their power ; that 
in the cloud of the human soul there is a fire stronger 
than the lightning, and a grace more precious than the 
rain ; and that though of the good and evil it shall one 
day be said alike, that the place that knew them knows 
them no more, there is an infinite separation between 
those whose brief presence had there been a blessing, 
like the mist of Eden that went up from the earth to 
water ths garden, and those whose place knew them 
only as a drifting and changeful shade, of whom the 
heavenly sentence is, that they are "wells without 
water ; clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom 
the mist of darkness is reserved for ever ? " 

100, To those among us, however, who have lived 
long enough to form some Just estimate of the rate of 
the changes which are, hour by hour in accelerating 
catastrophe, manifesting themselves in the laws, the 



138 SESAME AND LILIES. 

arts, and the creeds of men, it seems to me, that now 
at least, if never at any former time, the thoughts of 
the true nature of our life, and of its powers and respon- 
sibilities, should present themselves with absolute sad- 
ness and sternness. 

And although I know that this feeling is much deep- 
ened in my own mind by disappointment, which, by 
chance, has attended the greater number of my cher-i 
ished purposes, I do not for that reason distrust the^ 
feeling itself, though I am on my guard against an ex- 
aggerated degree of it : na}^, I rather believe that in 
periods of new effort and violent change, disappointment 
is a wholesome medicine ; and that in the secret of it, 
as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may see the, 
colours of things with deeper truth than in the most daz- 
zling sunshine. And because these truths about the 
works of men, which I want to bring to-day before you,^ 
are most of them sad ones, though at the same time 
helpful ; and because also I believe that your kind Irish 
hearts will answer more gladly to the truthful expres- 
sion of a personal feeling, than to the exposition of an 
abstract principle, I will permit myself so much unre- 
served speaking of my own causes of regret, as may 
enable you to make just allowance for what, according 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 139 

to your sympathies, yon will call either the bitterness, 
or the insight, of a mind which has surrendered its best 
hopes, and been foiled in its favourite aims. 

101. I spent the ten strongest years of my life, (from 
twenty to thirty,) in endeavouring to show the excellence 
of the work of the man whom I believed, and rightly 
believed, to be the greatest painter of the schools of 
England since Reynolds. I had then perfect faith in 
the power of every great truth or beauty to prevail ulti- 
mately, and take its right place in usefulness and honour ; 
and I strove to bring the painter's work into this due 
place, while the painter was yet alive. But he knew, 
better than I, the uselessness of talking about what 
people could not see for themselves. He always dis- 
couraged me scornfully, even when he thanked me — and 
he died before even the superficial effect of my work 
was visible. I went on, however, thinking I could at 
least be of use to the public, if not to him, in proving 
his power. My books got talked about a little. The 
prices of modern pictures, generally, rose, and I was 
beginning to take some pleasure in a sense of gradual 
victory, when, fortunately or unfortunately, an oppor- 
tunity of perfect trial undeceived me at once, and for 
ever. The Trustees of the National Gallery commis- 



140 SESAME AND LILIES. 

sioned me to arrange the Turner drawings there, and; 
permitted me to prepare three hundred examples of his 
studies from nature, for exhibition at Kensington. At 
Kensington they were and are, placed for exhibition ; 
but they are not exhibited, for the room in which they 
hang is always empty. 

102. Well — this showed me at once, that those ten 
years of my life had been, in their chief purpose, lost. 
For that, I did not so much care ; I had, at least, learned 
my own business thoroughly, and should bo able, as I 
fondly supposed, after such a lesson, noAv to use my 
knowledge with better effect. But what I did care for, 
was the — to me frightful — discovery, that the most 
splendid genius in the arts might be permitted by 
Providence to labour and perish uselessly ; that in the 
very fineness of it there might be something rendering 
it invisible to ordinary eyes ; but, that witli this strange 
excellence, faults might be mingled which would be as 
deadly as its virtues were vain ; that the glory of it was 
perishable, as well as invisible, and the gift and grace 
of it might be to us, as snow in summer, and as rain in 
harvest. 

103. That was the first mystery of life to me. But, 
while my best energy was given to the study of painting, 



MYSTEEY OF LIFE AND ITS AETS. 141 

I had ]3ut collateral effort, more prudent, if less enthu- 
siastic, into that of architecture ; and in this I could 
not complain of meeting with no sympathy. Among 
several personal reasons which caused me to desire that 
I might give this, my closing lecture on the subject of 
art here, in Ireland, one of the chief was, that in read- 
ing it, I should stand near the beautiful building, — the 
engineers' school of your college, — which was the first 
realization I had the joy to see, of the principles I had, 
until then, been endeavouring to teach ; but which alas, 
is now, to me, no more than the richly canopied monu- 
ment of one of the most earnest souls that ever gave 
itself to the arts, and one of my truest and most loving 
friends, Benjamin Woodward. Nor was it here in Ire- 
land only that I received the help of Irish sympathy 
and genius. When, to another friend, Sir Thomas 
Deane, with Mr. Woodward, was entrusted the building 
of the museum at Oxford, the best details of the Avork 
were executed by sculptors who had been born and 
trained here ; and the first window of the facade of the 
building, in which was inaugurated the study of natural 
science in England, in true fellowship with literature, 
was carved from my design by an Irish sculptor. 

104 You may perhaps think that no man ought to 



142 SESAME AND LILIES- 

speak of disappointment,, to whom, even in one branch 
of labour, so much success was granted. Had Mr. Wood- 
ward now been beside me, I had not so spoken ; but his 
gentle and passionate spirit was cut off from the fulfil- 
ment of its purposes, and the work we did together is 
now become vain. It may not be so in future ; but the 
architecture we endeavoured to introduce is inconsistent 
alike with the reckless luxury, the deforming mecha- 
nism, and the squalid misery of modern cities ; among 
the formative fashions of the day, aided, especially in 
England, by ecclesiastical sentiment, it indeed obtained 
notoriety ; and sometimes behind an engine furnace, or 
a railroad bank, you may detect the pathetic discord of 
its momentary grace, and, with toil, decipher its floral 
carvings choked with soot. I felt answerable to the 
schools I loved, only for their injury. I perceived that 
this new portion of my strength had also been spent in 
vain ; and from amidst streets of iron, and palaces of 
crystal, shrank back at last to the carving of the moun- 
tain and colour of the flower. i 

105. And still I could tell of failure, and failure re- 
peated as years went on ; but I have trespassed enough 
on your patience to show you, in part, the causes of my 
discouragement. Now let me more deliberately tell you 



MTSTEEY OF LITE AND ITS ARTS. 143 

its results. You know there is a tendency in the minds 
of many men, when they are heavily disappointed in 
the main purposes of their life, to feel, and perhaps in 
warning, perhaps in mockery, to declare, that life itself 
is a Aanity. Because it has disappointed them, they 
think its nature is of disappointment always, or at best, 
of pleasure that can be gras23ed by imagination only ; 
that the cloud of it has no strength nor fire within ; but 
is a painted cloud only, to be delighted in, yet despised. 
You know how beautifully Pope has expressed this par- 
ticular phase of thought : — 

" Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays. 
These jiainted clouds that beautify our days ; 
Each Avant of happiness by hope supplied. 
And each vacuity of sense, by j^ride. 

Hope builds as fast as Knowledge can destroy ; 
In Folly's cup, still laughs the bubble joy. 
One pleasure past, another still we gain. 
And not a vanity is given in vain." 

But the effect of failure upon my own mind has been 
|ust the reverse of this. The more that my life disap- 
pointed me, the more solemn and wonderful it became 
to me. It seemed, contrarily to Pope's saying, that the 



144 SESAME AND LILIES. 

vanity of it tvas indeed given in vain ; but tliat there 
was something behind the veil of it, which was not van- 
ity. It became to me not a painted cloud, but a terrible 
and impenetrable one : not a mirage, which vanished as 
I drew near, but a pillar of darkness, to which I was 
forbidden to draw near. For I saw that both my own I 
failure, and such success in petty things as in its poor 
triumph seemed to me worse than failure, came from 
the want of sufficiently earnest effort to understand the 
whole law and meaning of existence, and to bring it to 
noble and due end ; as, on the other hand, I saw more 
and more clearly that all enduring success in the arts, 
or in any other occupation, had come from the ruling 
of lower purposes, not by a conviction of their nothing- 
ness, but by a solemn faith in the advancing power of 
human nature, or in the promise, however dimly appre- 
hended, that the mortal part of it would one day be 
swallowed up in immortality ; and that, indeed, the arts 
themselves never had reached any vital strength or 
honour but in the effort to proclaim this immortality, and 
in the service either of great and just religion, or of 
some unselfish patriotism, and law of such national life 
as must be the foundation of religion. 

106. Nothing that I have ever said is more true or 



MYSTEEY OF LIFE AND ITS AETS. 145 

necessary — notliing lias been more misunderstood or 
misapplied — tlian my strong assertion, tliat the arts can 
never be right themselves, unless their motive is right. 
It is misunderstood this way : weak painters, who have 
never learned their business, and cannot lay a true line, 
continually come to me, crying out — "Look at this 
picture of mine ; it must be good, I had such a lovely 
motive. I have put my whole heart into it, and taken 
years to think over its treatment." Well, the only 
answer for these peojale is — if one had the cruelty to 
make it — " Sir, you cannot think over anyihing in any 
number of years, — you haven't the head to do it ; and 
though you had fine motives, strong enough to make 
you burn yourself in a slow fire, if only first you could 
paint a picture, you can't paint one, nor half an inch 
of one ; you haven't the hand to do it." 

But, far more decisively we have to say to the men 
who do know their business, or may know it if they 
choose — " Sir, you have this gift and a mighty one ; see 
that you serve your nation faithfully with it. It is a 
greater trust than ships and armies : you might cast 
them away, if you were their captain, with less treason 
to your people than in casting your own glorious power 
away, and serving the devil with it instead of men. 



'1 



l-tl> SESAME AND LILIES. 

Ships and armies you may replace if tliey are lost, but 
a great intellect, once abused is a curse to the earth 
for ever." 

107. This, then, I meant by saying that the arts must 
have noble motive. This also I said respecting tliem, 
that they never had prospered, nor could prosper, but 
when they had such true purpose, and were devoted to 
the proclamation of divine truth or law. And yet I saw 
also that they had always failed in this proclamation — 
that j)oetry, and sculpture, and painting, though only 
great when they strcve to teach us something about the 
gods, never had taught us anything trustworthy about 
the gods, but had always betrayed their trust in the 
crisis of it, and, with their powers at the full reach, 
became ministers to pride and to lust. And I felt also, 
with increasing amazement, the unconquerable apathy 
in ourselves the hearers, no less than in these the teach- 
ers ; and that, while the wisdom and rightness of every 
act and art of life could only be consistent with a right 
understanding of the ends of life, we were all plunged 
as in a languid dream — our heart fat, and our eyes 
heavy, and our ears closed, lest the inspiration of hand 
or voice should reach us — lest we should see with our 
eyes, and understand with our hearts, and be healed. 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 147 

108. This intense apathy in all of us is the first great 
mystery of life ; it stands in the way of every percep- 
tion, every virtue. There is no making ourselves feel 
enough astonishment at it. That the occupations or 
pastimes of life should have no motive, is understanda- 
ble ; but — That life itself should Lave no motive — that 
we neither care to find out what it may lead to, nor to 
guard against its being for ever taken away from us— 
here is a mystery indeed. For, just suppose I were 
able to call at this moment to any one in this audience 
by name, and to tell him positively that I knew a large 
estate had been lately left to him on some curious con- 
ditions ; but that, though I knew it was large, I did not 
know how la.rge, nor even where it was — whether in the 
East Indies or the West, or in England, or at the Antip- 
odes. I only knew it was a vast estate, and that there 
was a chance of his losing it altogether if he did not 
soon find out on what terms it had been left to him. 
Suppose I were able to say this positively to any single 
man in this audience, and he knew that I did not speak 
without warrant, do you think that he would rest con- 
tent with that vague knowledge, if it were anywise pos- 
sible to obtain more ? Would he not give every energy 
to find some trace of the facts, and never rest till he had 



118 SESAME AHD LILIES. 

ascertained wliere this place was, and what it was like ? 
And suppose lie were a young man, and all lie could 
discover by his best endeavour was, that the estate was 
never to be his at all, unless he persevered, during cer- 
tain years of probation, in an orderly and industrious 
life ; but that, according to the rightness of his conduct, 
the portion of the estate assigned to him would be 
greater or less, so that it literally depended on his be- 
haviour from da}^ to day whether he got ten thousand a 
year, or thirty thousand a year, or nothing whatever — 
would you not think it strange if the youth never troub- 
led himself to satisfy the conditions in any way, nor 
even to know what was required of him, but lived 
exactly as he chose, and never inquired whether his 
chances of the estate were increasing or passing away? 
Well, you know that this is actually and literally so 
with .the greater number of the educated persons now 
living in Christian countries. Nearly every man and 
woman, in any company such as this, outwardly pro- 
fesses to believe — and a large number unquestionably 
think they believe — much more than this ; not only that 
a quite unlimited estate is in prospect for them if they 
please the Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary of 
such a possession — an estate of j)erpetual misery, is in 



MYSTERY OP LIFE AND ITS AETS. 149 

Btore for tliem if they displease this great Land-Holder, 
this great Heaven-Holder. And yet there is not one in 
a thousand of these human souls that cares to think, for 
ten minutes of the day, where this estate is, or how 
beautiful it is, or what kind of life they are to lead in 
it, or what kind of life they must lead to obtain it. 

109. Tou fancy that you caro to know this : so little 
do you care that, probabl}^, at this moment many "of you 
are displeased with me for talking of the matter ! You 
came to hear about the Art of this world, not about the 
Life of the next, and you are provoked with me for talk- 
ing of what you can hear any Sunday in church. But 
do not bo afraid. I will tell you something before you 
go about pictures, and carvings, and pottery, and what 
else you would like better to hear of than the other 
world. Nay, perhaps you say, " We want you to talk 
of pictures and pottery, because we are sure that you 
know something of them, and you know nothing of the 
other world." Well — I don't. That is quite true. But 
the very strangeness and mystery of which I urge you 
to take notice is in this — that I do not ; — nor you either. 
Can you answer a single bold question unflinchingly 
about that other world — Are you sure there is a heaven? 
Sure there is a hell ? Sure that men are dropping be- 



I 



150 SESAME AND LILIES. 

fore your faces through the pavements of these streets 
into eternal lire, or sure that they are not ? Sure that 
at your own death you are going to be delivered from 
all sorrow, to be endowed with all virtue, to be gifted 
with all felicity, and raised into perpetual companion- 
ship with a King, compared to whom the kings of the 
earth are as grasshoppers, and the nations as the dust 
of His feet ? Are you sure of this ? or, if not sure, do 
any of us so much as care to make it sure ? and, if not, 
how can anything that we do be right — how can any- 
thing we think be wise ; what honor can there be in the 
arts that amuse us, or what profit in the possessions 
that please ? 

Is not this a mystery of life ? 

110. But farther, you may, perhaps, think it a bene- 
ficent ordinance for the generality of men that they do 
not, v.'ith earnestness or anxiety, dwell on such questions 
of the fviture ; because the business of the day could not 
be done if this kind of thought were taken by all of us 
for the morrow. Be it so : but at least we might antici- 
pate that the greatest and wisest of us, who were evidently 
the appointed teachers of the rest, would set themselves 
apart to seek out whatever could be surely known of the 
future destinies of their race ; and to teach this in no 



1 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS. ARTS. 151 

rhetorical or ambiguous mauuer, but in the plainest and 
most severely earnest words. 

Now, the highest representatives of men who have 
thus endeavoured, during the Christian era, to search out 
these deep tilings, and relate them, are Dante and Milton. 
There are none who for earnestness of thought, for mas- 
tery of word, can be classed with these. I am not at 
present, mind you, speaking of persons set apart in any 
priestly or pastoral office, to deliver creeds to us, or doc- 
trines ; but of men who try to discover and set forth, as 
far as by human intellect is possible, the facts of the 
other world. Divines may perhaps teach us how to ar- 
rive there, but only these two poets have in any jjower- 
ful manner striven to discovei-, or in any definite words 
professed to tell, what we shall see and become there : 
or how those upper and nether worlds are, and have 
been, inhabited. 

111. And what have they told us ? Milton's account 
of the most important event in his whole system of the 
universe, the fall of the angels, is evidently unbeliev- 
able to himself ; and the more so, that it is wholly 
founded on, and in a great part spoiled and degraded 
from, Hesiod's account of the decisive war of the youug- 
er gods with the Titans. The rest of his poem is a 



152 SESAME AND LILIES. 

picturesque drama, in which every artifice of invention 
is visibly and consciously employed ; not a single fact 
being, for an instant, conceived as tenable by any living 
faith. Dante's conception is far more intense, and, by 
himself, for the time, not to be escaped from ; it is in- 
deed a vision, but a vision only, and that one of the 
wildest that ever entranced a soul — a dream in which 
every grotesque type or phantasy of heathen tradition 
is renev/ed, and adorned ; and the destinies of the Chris- 
tian Church, under their most sacred symbols, become 
literally subordinate to the praise, and are only to be 
understood by the aid, of one dear Florentine maiden. 

112. I tell you truly that, as I strive more v/ith this 
strange lethargy and trance in myself, and awake to the 
meaning and power of life, it seems daily more amazing 
to me that men such as these should dare to play with 
the most precious truths (or the most deadly imtruths), 
by which the whole human race listening to them could 
be informed, or deceived ; — all the world their audi- 
ences for ever, with pleased ear, and passionate heart; 
— and yet, to this submissive infinitude of souls, and 
evermore succeeding and succeeding multitude, hun= 
gry for bread of life, they do but play upon sweetly 
modulated pipes ; with pompous nomenclature adorn 



I 



IVTYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 153 

the councils of liell ; touch a troubadour's guitar to tlie 
courses of tlie suns ; and fill the openings of eternityj 
before which prophets have veiled their faces, and 
which angels desire to look into, with idle puppets of 
their scholastic imagination, and melancholy lights of 
frantic faith in their lost mortal love. 

Is not this a mystery of life ? 

113. But more. We have to remember that these two 
great teachers were both of them warped in their tem- 
per, and thwarted in their search for truth. They were 
men of intellectual war ,^ unable, through darkness of 
controversy, or stress of personal grief, to discern where 
their own ambition modified their utterances of the 
moral law ; or their own agony mingled with their anger 
at its violation. But greater men than these have been — 
innocent-hearted — too great for contest. Men, like Ho- 
mer and Shakespeare, of so unrecognized personality, 
that it disappears in future ages, and becomes ghostly, 
like the tradition of a lost heathen god. Men, therefore, 
to whose uuoffended, ■uncondemning sight, the whole of 
human nature reveals itself in a pathetic weakness, with 
which they will not strive ; or in mournful and transi- 
tory strength, which they dare not praise. And all Pagan 
and Christian civilization thus becomes subject to them. 



154 SESAME AND LILIES. 

It does not matter how little, or how much, any of us 
have read, either of Homer or Shakespeare : everything 
round us, in substance, or in thought, has been moulded 
by them. All Greek gentlemen were educated under 
Homer. All Roman gentlemen, by Greek literature. 
All Italian, and French, and English gentlemen, by 
Eoman literature, and by its principles. Of the scope 
of Shakespeare, I will say only, that the intellectual 
measure of every man since born, in the domains of crea- 
tive thought, may be assigned to him, according to the 
degree in which he has been taught by Shakespeare. 
Well, what do these two men, centres of moral intelli- 
gence, deliver to us of conviction respecting what it 
most behoves that intelligence to grasp ? What is their 
hope ; their crown of rejoicing? what manner of exhor- 
tation have they for us, or of rebuke ? what lies next 
their own hearts, and dictates their undying words ? ■ 
Have they any peace to promise to our unrest — any re- 
demption to our misery ? j 
114. Take Homer first, and think if there is any sad- 
der image of human fate than the great Homeric story. 
The main features in the character of Achilles are its 
intense desire of justice, and its tenderness of affection. 
And in that bitter song of the Iliad, this man, though 



MYSTERY OP LIFE AND ITS AETS. 155 

aided continually by the wisest of the gods, and burning 
with the desire of justice in his heart, becomes yet, 
through ill -governed passion, the most unjust of men : 
and, full of the deepest tenderness in his heart, becomes 
yet, through ill-governed passion, the most cruel of men. 
Intense alike in love and in friendship, he loses, first his 
mistress, and then his friend ; for the sake of the one, he 
surrenders to death the armies of his own land ; for the 
sake of the other, he surrenders all. Will a man lay 
down his life for his friend? Yea — even for his dead 
friend, this Achilles, though goddess-born, and goddess- 
taught, gives up his kingdom, his country, and his life — 
easts alike the innocent and guilty, with himself, into 
one gulf of slaughter, and dies at last by the hand of the 
basest of his adversaries. Is not this a mystery of life ? 
115. But what, then, is the message to us of our own 
poet, and searcher of hearts, after fifteen hundred years 
of Christian faith have been numbered over the graves 
of men ? Are his words more cheerful than the hea- 
then's — is his hope more near — his trust more sure — his 
reading of fate more happy ? Ah, no ! He differs from 
the Heathen poet chiefly in this — that he recognizes, for 
deliverance, no gods nigh at hand ; and that, by petty 
chance — by momentary folly — by broken message^by 



156 SESAME AND LILIES. 

fool's tyranny — or traitor's snare, tlie strongest and most 
righteous are brought to their ruin, and perish without 
word of hope. He indeed, as part of his rendering of 
character, ascribes the power and modesty of habitual 
devotion, to the gentle and the just. The death-bed of 
Katharine is bright with vision of angels ; and the great 
soldier-king, standing by his few dead, acknowledges the 
presence of the hand that can save alike by many or by 
few. But observe that from those who with deepest 
spirit, meditate, and with deeepest passion, mourn, 
there are no such words as these ; nor in their hearts 
are any such consolations. Instead of the perpetual 
sense of the helpful presence of the Deity, which, 
through all heathen tradition, is the source of heroic 
strength, in battle, in exile, and in the valley of the 
shadow of death, we find only in the great Christian 
poet, the consciousness of a moral law, through which 
"the gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make 
instruments to scourge us ; " and of the resolved arbi- 
tration of the destinies, that conclude into precision of 
doom what we feeb.y and blindly began ; and force us, 
when our indiscretion serves us, and our deepest plots 
do pall, to the confession, that " there's a divinity that 
shapes our ends, rough hew them how we wilL" 



MYSTERY or LIFE AND ITS AETS. 157 

Is not this a mystery of life ? 

116. Be it so then. About this liuman life that is to 
be, or that is, the wise religious men tell us nothing 
that we can trust ; and the wise contemplative men, 
nothing that can give us peace. But there is yet a third 
class, to whom we may turn — the wise practical men. 
"We have sat at the feet of the poets who sang of heaven, 
and they have told us their dreams. We have listened 
to the poets who sang of earth, and they have chanted 
to us dirges, and words of despair. But there is one 
class of men more : — men, not capable of vision, nor 
sensitive to sorrow, but firm of purpose — practised in 
business : learned in all that can be, (by handling, — ) 
known. Men whose hearts and hopes are wholly in 
this present world, from whom, therefore, we may surely 
learn, at least, how, at present, conveniently to live in 
it. What will they say to us, or show us by example ? 
These kiugs — these councillors — these statesmen and 
builders of kingdoms — these capitalists and men of 
business, who weigh the earth, and the dust of it, in a 
balance. They know the world, surely ; and what is the 
mystery of life to us, is none to them. They can surely 
show us how to live, while we live, and to gather out 
of the j)resent world what is best. 



158 SESAME AND LILIES. 

117. I tliink I can best tell you their answer, by tell- 
ing you a dream I liad once. For though I am no 
poet, I have dreams sometimes : — I dreamed I was at a 
child's May-day party, in which every means of enter- 
tainment had been provided for them, by a wise and 
kind host. It was in a stately house, with beautiful 
gardens attached to it ; and the children had been set 
free in the rooms and gardens, with no care whatever 
but how to pass their afternoon rejoicingly. They did 
not, indeed, know much about what was to happen next 
day ; and some of them, I thought, w^ere a little fright- 
ened, because there was a chance of their being sent to 
a new school where there were examinations ; but they 
kept the thoughts of that out of their heads as well as 
they could, and resolved to enjoy themselves. The 
house, I said, was in a beautiful garden, and in the 
garden were all kinds of flowers ; sweet grassy banks 
for rest ; and smooih lawns for play ; and pleasant 
streams and woods ; and rocky places for climbing. And 
the children were happy for a little while, but presently 
they separated themselves into parties ; and then each ' 
party declared, it would have a piece of the garden for 
its own, and that none of the others should have any- 
thing to do with that piece. Next, they quarrelled vio- 



MYSTEEY OF LITE AND ITS AETS. 159 

lently, wliich pieces tbey would have ; and at last the 
boys took up the thing, as boys should do, " praotic- 
ally," and fought in the flower-beds till there was hardly 
a flower left standing ; then they trampled down each 
other's bits of the garden out of spite ; and the girls 
cried till they could cry no more ; and so they all lay 
down at last breathless in the ruin, and waited for the 
time when they were to be taken home in the evening."' 
118. Meanwhile, the children in the house had been 
making themselves happy also in their manner. For 
them, there had been provided every kind of in-doors 
pleasure : there was music for them to dance to ; and 
the library was open, with all manner of amusing books ; 
and there was a museum, full of the most curious shells, 
and animals, and birds ; and there was a workshop, with 
lathes and carpenter's tools, for the ingenious boys ; and 
there were pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress 
in ; and there were microscopes, and kaleidoscopes ; and 
whatever toys a child could fancy ; and a table, in the 
dining-room, loaded with everything nice to eat. 

*• I have sometimes been asked what this means. I intended it tn 
set iorth the wisdom of men in war contending for kingdoms, and 
what follows to set forth their wisdom in peace, coii tending for 
wealth. 



160 SESAME AKD LTLIES. 

But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three ' 
of the more "practical" children, that they would like | 
some of the brass-headed nails that studded the chairs ; 
and so they set to work to pull them out. Presently, 
the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took 
a fancy to do the like ; and, in a little while, all the 
children, nearly, were spraining their fingers, in pulling 
out brass-headed nails. With all that they could pull 
out, they were not satisfied ; and then, everybody wanted 
some of somebody else's. And at last the really prac- 
tical and sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any 
real consequence, that afternoon, except to get plenty 
of brass-headed nails ; and that the books, and the 
cakes, and the microscopes were of no use at all in them- 
selves, but only, if they could be exchanged for nail- 
heads. And, at last, they began to fight for nail-heads, 
as the others fought for the bits of garden. Only here 
and there, a despised one shrank away into a corner, 
and tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst 
of the noise ; but all the practical ones thought of noth- 
ing else but counting nail-heads all the afternoon — even 
though they knew they would not be allowed to carry 
so much as one brass knob away with them. But no — 
it was — " who has most nails ? I have a hundred, and 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 161 

you have fifty ; or, I have a thousand and you have 
two. I must have as many as you before I leave the 
house, or I cannot possibly go home in peace." At 
last, they made so much noise that I awoke, and 
thought to myself, "What a false dream that is, of 
cMldren." The child is the father of the man; and 
wiser. Children never do such foolish things. Only 
men do. 

119. But there is yet one last class of persons to be 
interrogated. The wise religious men we have asked 
in vain ; the wise contemplative men, in vain ; the wise 
worldly men, in vain. But there is another group yet. 
In the midst of this vanity of empty religion — of tragic 
contemplation — of wrathful and wretched ambition, and 
dispute for dust, there is yet one great group of persons, 
by whom all these disputers live — the persons who have 
determined, or have had it by a beneficent Providence 
determined for them, that they will do something use- 
ful ; that whatever may be prepared for them hereafter, 
or happen to them here, they will, at least, deserve the 
food that God gives them by winning it honourably ; 
and that, however fallen from the purity, or far from 
the peace, of Eden, they will carry out the duty of 
human dominion, though they have lost its felicity ; and 



162 SESAME AND LILIES. 1 

dress and keep the wilderness, tliougli tliey no more can 
dress or keep the garden. 

These, — hewers of wood, and drawers of water — these 
bent under burdens, or torn of scourges — these, that 
dig and weave — that plant and build ; workers in wood, 
and in marble, and in iron — by whom all food, clothing, 
habitation, furniture, and means of delight are produced,! 
for themselves, and for all men beside ; men, whose 
deeds are good, though their words may be few ; men, 
whose lives are serviceable, be they never so short, and 
worthy of honour, be they never so humble ;— from 
these, surely at least, we may receive some clear mes- 
sage of teaching : and pierce, for an instant, into the 
mystery of life, and of its arts. 

120. Yes ; from these, at last, we do receive a lesson- 
But I grieve to say, or rather — for that is the deeper 
truth of the matter — I rejoice to say — this message of 
theirs can only be received by joining them — not by 
thinking about them. 

You sent for me to talk to you of art ; and I have 
obeyed you in coming. But the main thing I have to 
tell you is, — that art must not be talked about. The 
fact that there is talk about it at all, signifies that it is 
ill done, or cannot be done. No true painter ever speaks, 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 163 

or ever has spoken, much of his art. The greatest speak 
nothing. Even Reynolds is no exception, for he wrote 
of all that he could not himself do, and was utterly 
silent respecting all that he himself did. 

The moment a man can really do his work, he be- 
comes speechless about it. All words become idle to 
him — all theories. 

I 121. Does a bird need to theorize about building its 
nest, or boast of it when built ? All good work is es- 
sentially done that Avay — without hesitation, without 
difficulty, without boasting ; and in the doei-s of the 
best, there is an inner and involuntary power which 
approximates literally to the instinct of an animal — nay, 
I am certain that in the most perfect human artists, 
reason does not supersede instinct, but is added to an 
instinct as much more divine than that of the lower 
animals as the human body is more beautiful than 
theirs ; that a great singer sings not with less instinct 
than the nightingale, but with more — only more various, 
applicable, and governable ; that a great architect does 
not build with less instinct than the beaver or the bee, 
but with more — with an innate cunning of 'nroportion 
that embraces all beauty, and a divine ingenuity of skill 
that improvises all construction. But be that as it may 



164 SESAME AND LILIES. 

— be the instinct less or more than that of inferior ani- 
mals — like or unlike theirs, still the human art is 
dependent on that first, and then upon an amount of 
practice, of science, — and of imagination disciplined by 
thought, which the true possessor of it knows to be in- 
communicable, and the true critic of it, inexplicable, 
except through long process of laborious years. That 
journey of life's conquest, in which hills over hills, and 
Alps on Alps arose, and sank, — do you think you can 
make another trace it painlessly, by talking ? Why, you 
cannot even carry us up an Alp, by talking. You can guide 
us up it, step by step, no otherwise — even so, best 
silently. You girls, who have been among the hills, 
know how the bad guide chatters and gesticulates, and 
it is " put your foot here," and " mind how you balance 
yourself there ; " but the good guide walks on quietly, 
without a word, only with his eyes on you when need is, I 
and his arm like an iron bar, if need be. 

122. In that slow way, also, art can be taught — if you 
have faith in your guide, and will let his arm be to you 
as an iron bar when need is. But in what teacher of art 
have you such faith ? Certainly not in me ; for, as I 
told you at first, I know well enough it is only because 
you think I can talk, not because you think I know my 



MYSTEEY OF LIFE AND ITS AETS. 165 

business, tliat you let me speak to you at alL If I were 
to tell you anything that seemed to you strange, you 
would not believe it, and yet it would only be in telling 
you strange things that I could be of use to you. I 
could be of ereat use to you — infinite use, with brief 
saying, if you would believe it ; but you would not, just 
because the thing that would be of real use would dis- 
please you. Tou are all wild, for instance, with admir- 
ation of Gustave Dore. "Well, suppose I were to tell you 
in the strongest terms I could use, that Gustave Dore's 
art was bad — bad, not in weakness, — not in failure, — 
but bad with dreadful power — the power of the Furies 
and the Harpies mingled, enraging, and polluting ; that 
so long as you looked at it, no perception of pure or 
beautiful art was possible for you. Suppose I were to 
tell you that ! What would be the use ? Would you look 
at Gustave Dore less ? Rather more, I fancy. On the 
other hand, I could soon put you into good humour with 
me, if I chose. I know well enough what you like, and 
how to praise it to your better liking. I could talk to 
you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowerSj 
and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Eaphael — how 
motherly ! and the Sibyls of Michael Angelo — how ma- 
jestic ! and the Saints of Angelico — how pious ! and the 



166 SESAME AND LILIES. 

Clierubs of Correggio — how delicious ! Old as I am, I 
could play you a tune on tlie harp yet, that you would 
dance to. But neither you nor I should be a bit the 
better or wiser ; or, if we were, our increased wisdom 
could be of no practical effect. For, indeed, the arts, as 
regards teachableness, differ from the sciences also in 
this, that their power is founded not merely on facts 
which can be communicated, but on dispositions which 
require to be created. Art is neither to be achieved by 
effort of thinking, nor explained by accuracy of speaking. 
It is the instinctive and necessary result of powers 
which can only be developed through the mind of suc- 
cessive generations, and which finally burst into life 
under social conditions as slow of growth as the facul- 
ties they regulate. Whole seras of mighty history are 
summed, and the passions of dead myriads are concen- 
trated, in the existence of a noble art ; and if that noble 
art were among us, we should feel it and rejoice ; not 
oaring in the least to hear lectures on it ; and since it is 
not among us, be assured we have to go back to the 
root of it, or, at least, to the place where the stock of it 
is yet alive, and the branches began to die. 

123. And now, may I have your pardon for pointing 
out, partly with reference to matters which are at this 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 167 

time of greater moment than tlie arts — that if we under- 
took sucli recession to the vital germ of national arts 
that have decayed, we should find a more singular arrest 
of their power in Ireland than in any other European 
country. For in the eighth century, Ireland possessed 
a school of art in her manuscripts and sculpture, which, 
in many of its qualities — apparently in all essential 
qualities of decorative invention — was quite without 
rival ; seeming as if it might have advanced to the high- 
est triumphs in architecture and in painting. But there 
was one fatal flaw in its nature, by which it was stayed, 
and stayed with a conspicuousness of pause to which 
there is no parallel : so that, long ago, in tracir^g tlie 
progress of European schools from infancy ir, ytiength, 
I chose for the students of Kensington, in a lecture 
since published, two characteristic examj)lei-> of e'lrly 
art, of equal skill ; but in the one case, skill which was 
progressive — in the other, skill which was at pause. In 
the one case, it was work receptive of correction — hun- 
gry for correction — and in the other, work which inher- 
ently rejected correction. I chose for them a corrigible 
Eve, and an incorrigible Angel, and I grieve to say that 
the incorrigible Angel was also an Irish angel ! '" 
* See The Two Paths, p. 27. 



168 SESAME AND LILIES. 

124. And the fatal diflference lay wholly in this. In 
both pieces of art there was an equal falling short of the 
needs of fact ; but the Lombardic Eve knew she was in 
the wrong, and the Irish Angel thought himself all 
right. The eager Lombardic sculptor, though firmly 
insisting on his childish idea, yet showed in the irregu- 
lar broken touches of the features, and the imperfect 
struggle for softer lines in the form, a perception of 
beauty and law that he could not render ; there was the 
strain of effort, under conscious imperfection, in every 
line. But the Irish missal-painter had drawn his angel 
with no sense of failure, in happy complacency, and put 
red dots into the palms of each hand, and rounded the 
eyes into perfect circles, and, I regret to say, left the 
mouth out altogether, with perfect satisfaction to him- 
self. 

125. May I without offence ask you to consider 
whether this mode of arrest in ancient Irish art may 
not be indicative of points of character which even yet, 
in some measure, arrest your national power? I have 
seen much of Irish character, and have watched it 
closely, for I have also much loved it. And I think the 
form of failure to which it is most liable is this, that 
being generous-hearted, and wholly intending always to 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 1.69 

do right, it does Dot attend to the external laws of right, 
but thinks it must necessarily do right because it means 
to do so, and therefore does, wrong without finding it 
out ; and then when the consequences of its wrong come 
upon it, or upon others connected with it, it cannot con- 
ceive tliat the wrong is in anywise of its causing or of 
its doing, but flies into wrath, and a strange agony of 
desire for justice, as feeling itself wholly innocent, 
which leads it farther astray, until there is nothing that 
it is not capable of doing with a good conscience. 

126. But mind, I do not mean to say that, in past or 
present relations between Ireland and England, you 
have been wrong, and we right. Far from that, I be- 
lieve that in all great questions of principle, and in all 
details of administration of law, you have been usually 
right, and we wrong ; sometimes in misunderstanding 
you, sometimes in resolute iniquity to you. Neverthe- 
less, in all disputes between states, though the strongest 
is nearly always mainly in the wrong, the weaker is 
often so in a minor degree ; and I tliink we sometimes 
admit the possibility of our being in error, and yo 
never do. 

127. And now, returning to the broader question 
what these arts and labours of life have to teach us of 



170 SESAME AND LILIES. 

its mystery, this is tlie first of their lessons — that the 
more beautiful the art, the more it is essentially the 
work of people who feel themselves tvrong : — who are 
striving for the fulfilment of a law, and the grasp of a 
loveliness, which they have not yet attained, which they 
feel even farther and farther from attaining, the more 
they strive for it. And yet, in still deeper sense, it is 
the work of people who know also that they are right. 
The very sense of inevitable error from their purpose 
marks the perfectness of that purpose, and the continued 
sense of failure arises from the continued opening of 
the eyes more clearly to all the sacredest laws of truth. 
128. This is one lesson. The second is a very j)lain, 
and greatly precious one, namely : — that whenever the 
arts and labours of life are fulfilled in this spirit of 
striving against misrule, and doing whatever we have 
to do, honourably and perfectly, they invariably bring 
happiness, as much as seems possible to the nature of 
man. In all other paths, by which that haj^piness is 
pursued, there is disa,ppointment, or destruction : for 
ambition and for passion there is no rest — no fruition ; 
the fairest pleasures of youth perish in a darkness 
greater than their past light ; and the loftiest and purest 
love too often does but inflame the cloud of life with 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. l71 

endless fire of j)aiu. But, ascending from lowest to 
highest, through every scale of human industry, that 
industry wor::hily followed, gives peace. Ask the la- 
bourer in the field, at the forge, or in the mine ; ask the 
patient, delicate-fingered artisan, or the strong-armed, 
fiery-hearted worker in bronze, and in marble, and with 
the colours of light ; /and none of these, who are true 
workmen, will ever tell you, that they have found the 
law of heaven an unkind one-f-that in the sweat of their 
face they should eat bread, till they return to the 
ground; nor that they ever found it an unrewarded 
obedience, if, indeed, it was rendered faithfully to the 
command — "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do — do it 
with thy might." 

129. These are the two great and constant lessons 
which our labourers teach us of the mystery of life. 
But there is another, and a sadder one, which they can- 
not teach us, which Ave must read on their tombstones. 

"Do it with thy might." There have been myriads 
upon myriads of human creatures who have obeyed this 
law — who have put every breath and nerve of their 
being into its toil — who have devoted every hour, and 
exhausted every faculty — who have bequeathed their 
unaccomplished thoughts at death — who being dead. 



172 SESAME AND LILIES, 

have yet spokeu, by majesty of memory, and strength 
of example. And, at last, what has all this "Might " of 
humanity accomplished, in sis thousand years of labour 
and sorrow ? What has it done ? Take the three chief 
occupations and arts of men, one by one, and count 
their achievements. Begin with the first — the lord of 
them all — agriculture. Six thousand years have passed 
since we were set to till the ground, from which we were 
taken. How much of it is tilled ? How much of that 
which is, wisely or well ? In the very centre and chief 
garden of Europe — where the two forms of parent 
Christianity have had their fortresses — where the noble 
Catholics of the Forest Cantons, and the noble Protest- 
ants of the Vaudois valleys, have maintained, for date- 
less ages, their faiths and liberties — there the unchecked 
Alpine rivers yet run wild in devastation : and the 
marshes, which a few hundred men could redeem witJi 
a year's labour, still blast their helpless inhabitants into 
fevered idiotism. That is so, in the centre of Europe ! 
While, on the near coast of Africa, once the Garden of 
the Hesperides, an Arab woman, but a few sunsets since, 
ate her child, for famine. And, with all the treasures 
of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, could 
not find a few grains of rice, for a people that asked of 



MYSTERY OF LITE AND ITS ARTS. 173 

US no more ; but stood by, and saw five hundred thou- 
sand of them perish of hunger. 

130. Then, after agriculture, the art of kings, take 
the next head of human arts — weaving ; the art of 
queens, honored of all noble Heathon women, in the 
person of their virgin goddess — honoured of all Hebrew 
women, by the word of their wisest king—" She layeth 
her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the dis- 
taff ; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is 
not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her 
household are clot3ied with scarlet. She maketh herself 
covering of ta.pestry, her clothing is silk and purple. 
She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth 
girdles to the merchant." What have we done in all 
these thousands of years with this bright art of Greek 
maid and Christian matron ? Six thousand years of 
weaving, and have we learned to weave ? Might not 
every naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and 
every feeble breast fenced with sweet colours from the 
cold ? What have we done ? Our fingers are too few, 
it seems, to twist together some poor covering for our 
bodies. We set our streams to work for us, and choke 
the air with fire, to turn our spinning-wheels — and, — ■ 
are we yet clothed ? Are not the streets of the capitals 



174 SESAME AND LILIES. 

of Europe foul with tlie sale of cast clouts and rotten 
rags? Is not the beauty of your sweet children left in 
wretchedness of disgrace, while, with better honour, 
nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and the 
suckling of the wolf in her den ? And does not every 
winter's snow robe what you have not robed, and shroud 
what you have not shrouded ; and every v/inter's wind 
bear up to heaven its wasted souls, to witness against 
you hereafter, by the voice of their Christ, — "I was 
naked, and ye clothed me not ? " 

131. Lastly — take the Art of Building — the strongest 
— proudest — most orderly — most enduring of the arts 
of man, that, of which the produce is in the surest man- 
ner accumulative, and need not perish, or be replaced ; 
but if once well done, will stand more strongly than the 
unbalanced rocks — more prevalently than the crumb- 
ling hills. The art which is associated with all civic 
pride and sacred principle ; with which men record 
their power — satisfy their enthusiasm — make sure their 
defence — define and make dear their habitation. And, 
in six thousand years of building, what have we done ? 
Of the greater part of all that skill and strength, no ves- 
tige is left, but fallen stones, that encumber the- fields 
and impede the streams. But, from this waste of dis- 



IHYSTEEY OF LIFE AND ITS AKTS. 175 

order, and of time, and of rage, what is left to lis ? 
Constructive and progressive creatures, that we are, 
with ruling brains, and forming hands, capable of fel- 
lowship, and thirsting for fame, can we not contend, in 
comfort, with the insects of the forest, or, in achieve- 
ment, with the worm of the cea. The white surf rages 
in vain against the ramparts built by poor atoms of 
scarcely nascent life ; but only rklges of formless ruin 
mark the places where once dwelt our noblest multi- 
tudes. The ant and the moth have cells for each of 
their young, but our little ones lie in festering heaps, 
in homes that consume them like graves ; and night by 
night, from the corners of our streets, rises up the cry 
of the homeless — " I was a stranger, and je took me 
not in." 

132. Must it be always thus? Is our life for ever 
to be without profit — without possession ? Shall the 
strength of its generations be as barren as death ; or 
cast away their labour, as the wild figtree casts her un- 
timely figs? Is it all a dream then — the desire of the 
eyes and the pride of life — or, if it be, might we not live 
in nobler dream than this ? The poets and prophets, 
the wise men, and the scribes, though they have told us 
riothing about a life to come, have told us much about 



176 SESAME AND LILIES. 

the life that is now. They have had — they also, — thair 
dreams, and we have laughed at them. They have 
dreamed of mercy, and of justice ; they have dreamed 
of peace and good-will ; they have dreamed of labour 
undisappointed, and of rest undisturbed ; they have 
dreamed of fulness in harvest, and overflowing in store ; 
they have dreamed of wisdom in council, and of provi- 
dence in law ; of gladness of parents, and strength of 
children, and glory of grey hairs. And at these visions 
of theirs we have mocked, and held them for idle and 
vain, unreal and unaccomplishable. What have we 
accomplished with our realities ? Is this what has come 
of our worldly wisdom, tried against their folly ? this 
our mightiest possible, against their impotent ideal ? or 
have we only wandered among the spectra of a baser 
felicity, and chased phantoms of the tombs, instead of 
visions of the Almighty ; and walked after the imagina- 
tions of our evil hearts, instead of after the counsels of 
Eternity, until our lives^ — not in the likeness of the 
cloud of heaven, but of the smoke of hell — have become 
" as a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then 
vanisheth away ? " 

133. Does it vanish then ? Are you sure of that ? — 
sure, that the nothingness of the grave will be a rest 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS AETS. 177 

from this troubled nothingness ; and that the coiling 
shadow, which disquiets itself in vain, cannot change 
into the smoke of the torment that ascends for ever? 
"Will any answer that they are sure of it, and that there 
is no fear, nor hope, nor desire, nor labour, whither 
they go ? Be it so ; will you not, then, make as sure of 
the Life, that now is,* as you are of the Death that is to 
come ? Your hearts are wholly in this world — will you 
not give them to it wisely, as well as perfectly ? And see, 
first of all, that you have hearts, and sound hearts, too, 
to give. Because you have no heaven to look for, is that 
any reason that you should remain ignorant of this won- 
derful and infinite earth, which is firmly and instantly 
given you in possession ? Although your days are num- 
bered, and the following darkness sure, is it necessary 
that you should share the degradation of the brute, be- 
cause you are condemned to its mortality ; or live the life 
of the moth, and of the worm, because you are to com- 
panion them in the dust ? Not so ; we may have but a few 
thousands of days to spend, perhaps hundreds only— 
perhaps tens ; nay, the longest of our time and best, 
looked back on, will be but as a moment, as the twink- 
ling of an eye ; still, we are men, not insects ; we are 
b' ving spirits, not passing clouds. " He maketh the winds 



SESAME AND LILIES. 



i 



His messengers ; tlie momentary fire, His minister ; " and 
sliall we do less than these ? Let us do tlie work of men 
T/liile we bear tlie form of them ; and, as we snatch our 
narrow portion of time out of Eternity, snatch also our 
narrow inheritance of passion out of Immortality — 
even though our lives he as a vapour, that appeareth for 
a little time, and then vanisheth away. 

134. But there are some of you who believe not this— 
who think this cloud of life has no such close — that it is 
to float, revealed and illumined, upon the floor of heav- 
en, in the day when He cometh with clouds, and every 
eye shall see Him. Some day, you believe, within these 
five, or ten, or twenty years, for every one of us the 
judgment will be set, and the books opened. If that be 
true, far more than that must be true. Is there but one 
day of judgment ? Why, for us every day is a day of 
judgment — every day is a Dies Irse, and writes its irrev- 
ocable verdict in the flame of its West. Think you that 
judgment waits till the doors of the grave are opened ? It 
waits at the doors of your houses — it waits at the corners 
of your streets ; we are in the midst of judgment — the 
insects that we crush are our judges — the moments we 
fret away are our judges— the elements that feed us, 
judge, as they minister — and the pleasures that deceive 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS AETS. 179 

US, judge as tliey indulge. Let us, for our lives, do the 
work of Meu while we bear the Form of them, if indeed 
those lives are Not as a vapour, and do Not vanish away. 
135. " The work of men " — and what is that? Well, 
we may any of us know very quickly, on the condition 
of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us are for 
the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of 
what we are to get ; and the best of us are sunk into the 
sin of Ananias, and it is a mortal one — we want to keep 
back part of the price ; and we continually talk of taking 
up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the lueigJit 
of it — as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of 
to be — crucified upon. " They that are His have cruci- 
fied the flesh, with the affections and lusts." Does that 
mean, think you, that in time of national distress, of 
religious trial, of crisis for every interest and hope of 
humanity — 'Uone of us will cease jesting, none cease 
idling, none put themselves to any wholesome work, 
none take so much as a tag of lace off their footman's 
coats, to save the world ? Or does it rather mean, that 
they are ready to leave houses, lands, and kindreds — 
yes, and life, if need be ? Life ! — some of us are ready 
enough to throw that away, joyless as we have made it. 
But " station in Life " — how many of us are ready to 



180 SESAME AND LILIES. 

quit that ? Is it not always the great objection, where 
there is question of finding something useful to do — 
" We cannot leave our stations in Life ? " 

Those of us who really cannot — that is to say, who 
can only maintain themselves by continuing in some 
business or salaried office, have already something to 
do ; and all that they have to see to, is that they do it 
honestly and with all their might. But with most peo- 
ple who use that apology, " remaining in the station of 
life to which Providence has called them," means keep- 
ing all the carriages, and all the footmen and large 
houses they can possibly pay for ; and, once for all, I 
say that if ever Providence did put them into stations 
of that sort — which is not at all a matter of certainty — 
Providence is just now very distinctly calling them out 
again. Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; 
and Peter's, the shore of Galilee ; and Paul's, the ante- 
chambers of the High Priest, — which " station in life " 
each had to leave, with brief notice. 

And, whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, 
those of us who mean to fulfil our duty ought, first, to 
live on as little as we can ; and, secondly, to do all the 
wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we can 
spare in doing all the sure good we can. 



i 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 181 

And sure good is first in feeding people, tlien in dress- 
ing people, then in lodging people, and lastly in rightly 
pleasing people, with arts, or sciences, or any other 
subject of thought. 

136. I say first in feeding ; and, once for all, do not 
let yourselves be deceived by any of the common talk 
of " indiscriminate charity." The order to us is not to 
feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious hungry, 
nor the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply 
to feed the hungry. It is quite true, infallibly true, 
that if any man will not work, neither should he eat — 
think of that, and every time you sit down to your din- 
ner, ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask 
a blessing, " How much work have I done to-day for my 
dinner? " But the proper way to enforce that order on 
those below you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave 
vagabonds and honest people to starve together, but 
very distinctly to discern and seize your vagabond ; and 
shut your vagabond up out of honest people's way, and 
very sternly then see that, until he has worked, he does 
not eat. But the first thing is to be sure you have the 
food to give ; and, therefore, to enforce th'e organization 
of vast activities in agriculture and in commerce, for the 
production of the wholesomest food, and proper storing 



182 SESAME AND LILIES. 

and distribution of it, so that no famine shall any more 
be possible among civilized beings. There is plenty of 
work in this business alone, and at once, for any num- 
ber of people who like to engage in it. 

137. Secondly, dressing people — that is to say, urging 
every one within reach of your influence to be always 
neat and clean, and giving them means of being so. In 
so far as they absolutely refuse, you must give up the 
effort with respect to them, only taking care that no 
children within your sphere of influence shall any more 
be brought up with such habits ; and that every person 
who is willing to dress with propriety shall have en- 
couragement to do so. And the first absolutely neces- 
sary step towards this is the gradual adoption of a con- 
sistent dress for different ranks of persons, so that their 
rank shall be known by their dress ; and the restriction 
of the changes of fashion within certain limits. All 
which appears for the present quite impossible ; but it 
is only so far as even difficult as it is difiicult to conquer 
our vanity, frivolity, and desire to appear what we are 
not. And it is not, nor ever shall be, creed of mine, 
that these mean and shallow vices are unconquerable 
by Christian women. 

138. And then, thirdly, lodging people, which you 



MYSTEEY OF LIFE AND ITS AETS. 183 

may think should have been put first, but I put it third, 
because we must feed a^d clothe people where we find 
them, and lodge them afterwards. And providing lodg- 
ment for them means a great deal of vigorous legisla- 
ture, and cutting down of vested interests tliat stand in 
the way, and after that, or before that, so far as we can 
get it, thorough sanitary and remedial action in the 
houses that we have ; and then the building of more, 
strongly, beautifully, and in groups of limited extent, 
kept in proportion to their streams, and walled round, 
so that there may be no festering and wretched suburb 
anywhere, but clean and busy street within, and the 
open country without, with a belt of beautiful garden 
and orchard round the walls, so that from any part ot 
the city perfectly fresh air and grass, and sight of far 
horizon might be reachable in a few minutes' walk. 
This the final aim ; but in immediate action every minor 
and possible good to be instantly done, when, and as, 
we can ; roofs mended that have holes in them — fences 
patched that have gaps in them— walls buttressed that 
totter — and floors propped that shake ; cleanliness and 
order enforced with our own hands and eyes, till we 
are breathless, every day. And all the fine arts will 
healthily follow. I myself have washed a flight of stone 



184 SESAME AND LILIES. 



stairs all down, with bucket and broom, in a Savoy inn, 
wliere they hadn't washed their stairs since they first 
went up them ? and I never made a better sketch than 
that afternoon. 

139. These, then, are the three first needs of civilized 
life ; and the law for every Christian man and woman is, 
that they shall be in direct service towards one of these 
three needs, as far as is consistent with their own spec- 
ial occupation, and if they have no special business, then 
wholly in one of these services. And out of such exer- 
tion in plain duty all other good will come ; for in this 
direct contention with material evil, you will find out 
the real nature of all evil ; you will discern by the va- 
rious kinds of resistance, what is really the fault and 
main antagonism to good ; also you will find the most 
unexpected helps and profound lessons given/ and truths 
will come thus down to us which the speculation of all 
our lives would never have raised us up to. /You will 
find nearly every educational problem solved, as soon as 
you truly want to do something t everybody will become 
of use in their own fittest way, and will learn what is 
best for them to know in that use. Competitive exam- 
ination will then, and not till then, be wholesome, 
because it will be daily, and calm, and in practice ; and 



1 

.i. i 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 185 

on these familiar arts, and minute, but certain and ser- 
viceable knowledges, will be surely edified and sustained 
the greater arts and splendid theoretical sciences. 

140. But much more than this. On such holy and 
simple practice will be founded, indeed, at last, an in- 
fallible religion. [ The greatest of all the mysteries of 
life, and the most terrible, is the corruption of even the 
sincerest religion, which is not daily founded on rational, 
effective, humble, and helpful action.! Helpful action, 
observe ! for there is just one law, which obeyed, keeps 
all religions pure — forgotten, makes them all false. 
Whenever in any religious faith, dark or bright, we al- 
low our minds to dwell upon the points in which we 
differ from other people, we are wrong, and in the devil's 
power. That is the essence of the Pharisee's thanks- 
giving — " Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men 
are." At every moment of our lives we should be try- 
ing to find out, not in what we differ with other people, 
but in what we agree with them ; and the moment we 
find we can agree as to anything that should be done, 
kind or good, (and who but fools couldn't ?) then do it ; 
push at it together ; you can't quarrel in a side-by-side 
push ; but the moment that even the best men stop 
pushing, and begin talking, they mistake their pugnacity 



186 SESAME AND LILIES. 

for pietj, and it's all over. I will not speak of the 
crimes whicli in past times have been committed in the 
name of Christ, nor of the follies which are at this hour 
held to be consistent with obedience to Him ; but I will 
, speak of the morbid corruption and waste of vital power 
in religious sentiment, by which the pure strength of 
that which should be the guiding soul of every nation, 
the splendour of its youthful manhood, and spotless 
light of its maidenhood, is averted or cast away. You 
may see continually girls who have never been taught 
to do a single useful thing thoroughly ; who cannot sew, 
who cannot cook, who cannot cast an account, nor pre- 
pare a medicine, whose whole life has been passed 
either in play or in pride ; you will find girls like these 
when they are earnest-hearted, cast all their innate pas- 
sion of religious spirit, which was meant by God to 
support them through the irksomeness of daily toil, 
into grievous and vain meditation over the meaning of 
the great Book, of which no syllable was ever yet to be 
understood but through a deed ; all the instinctive wis- 
dom and mercy of their womanhood made vain, and the 
glory of their pure consciences warped into fruitless 
agony concerning questions which the laws of common 
serviceable life would have either solved for them in an 



I 



I 



MYSTERY OF LIFE AND ITS ARTS. 187 

instant, or kept out of tbeir way. Give such a girl any 
true work that will make her active in the dawn, and 
weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow- 
creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and 
the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform 
itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace. 

So Vv'ith our youths. We once taught them to make 
Latin verses, and called them educated ; now we teach 
them to leap and to row, to hit a ball with a bat, and 
call them educated. Can they plow, can they sov/, 
can they plant at the right time, or build with a steady 
hand ? Is it the effort of their lives to be chaste, 
knightly, faithful, holy in thought, lovely in word and 
deed ? Indeed it is, with some, nay with many, and the 
strength of England is in them, and the hope; but Ave 
have to turn their courage from the toil of war to the 
toil of mercy ; and their intellect from dispute of words 
to discernment of things ; and their knighthood from the 
errantry of adventure to the state and fidelity of a kingly 
power. And then, indeed, shall abide, for them, and 
for us an incorruptible felicity, and an infallible religion ; 
shall abide for us Faith, no more to be assailed by temp- 
tation, no more to be defended by wrath and by fear ; 
• — shall abide with us Hope, no more to be quenched by 



188 



SESAME AND LILIES. 



the years tliat overwhelm, or made ashamed by the 
shadows that betray ; shall abide for us, and with us, 
the greatest of these ; the abiding will, the abiding name, 
of our Father. For the greatest of these, is Charity. 



3, 



EXPLANATION. 



The references are to the American Popular Edition of 
Ruskin, with the exception of those from Praeterita, which 
are to the English edition. 

Look in the index to find on what pages of the Text and 
Notes any annotated word is found ; the full-face numbers 
show the page of Notes, and the plain type, page of Text. 

K. T. = Kings' Treasuries. . 

Q. G. = Queens' Gardens. 

M. of L. = Mystery of Life. 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 



THE EDITIONS OF SESAME AND LILIES. 

The title-page of the first edition describes the book as : — 
Sesame and Lilies. Two Lectures delivered at Manches- 
ter in 1864, by John Euskin, M.A. 1. Of Kings' Treas- 
uries. 2. Of Queens' Gardens, pp. 196. London : Smith, 
Elder & Co., 1865. • 

This had no preface, but a second edition, with a preface, 
was published the same year. The third edition, of which 
this volume is the American reprint, is a " Revised and En- 
larged Edition, being the first volume of a Collected Series 
of Mr. Euskin's Works, with the old preface ' detached for 
use elsewhere,' a new preface to the series, dated ' Den- 
mark Hill, 1st January, 1871.' and the addition of the 
Dnblin Lecture (1868) on 'The Mystery of Life and its 
Arts,' pp. xxviii., 172. London : Smith, Elder & Co., 
1871." [Shepherd's Bibliography of Euskin.] 

Four more editions have appeared since this, of which 
the seventh and last, published in 1883, is an exact reprint 
of the first, and has a new preface which explains that the 
book has been re-produced at the request of a friend. See 
Note on the two following ones. 



I. Fifty-one years old. — John Euskin was born in London, 

Feb. 8, 1819. 

temporary purposes.— Much of Euskin's work has been in 
the form of lectures and addresses, letters to irewspapers 
and reviews, and catalogues of collections of paintings. It 
has often dealt with subjects of temporary interest, or dis- 
cussed questions since decided. Having served its purpose. 



192 NOTES ON PREFACE. 

some of it has become "' unnecessary, '' and its value is now 
pm'ely literary. 

What I wrote about religion. — For specimens of this see 
Seven Lamps, p. 199 ; Stones of Vemce, vol. I., p. 384 ; 
Modern Painters, Part V., p. 333. 

educated in ... a narrow sect. — The following quota- 
tions show as clearly as it can be explained the influences 
which gave a decided bent to Mr. Kuskin's religious convic- 
tions, and yet led him to say in Fors Clavigera, Letter XL., 
p. 55 : — "4th March, 1874. — I have been horribly plagued 
and misguided by evangelical people, all my life ; and most 
of all lately ; but my mother was one, and my Scotch aunt ; 1 
and I have yet so much of the superstition left in me, that I 'f 
can't help sometimes doing as evangelical people wish, — for 
all 1 know it comes to nothing." 

" My mother had, as she afterwards told me, solemnly | 
' devoted me to God ' before I was born ; in imitation of i 
Hannah. ' Devoting me to God ' meant, as far as my 
mother knew herself what she meant, that she would try 
to send me to college, and make a clergyman of me : and I 
was accordingly bred for Hhe Church.' My father, who — 
rest be to his soul — had the exceedingly bad habit of yield- 
ing to my mother in large things and taking his own way 
in little ones, allowed me to be thus withdrawn from the 
sherry trade as an unclean thing ; not without some pardon- 
able participation in my mother's ultimate viev/s for me. 
For, many and many a year afterwards, I remember, while 
he was speaking to one of our artist friends, who admired 
Raphael, and greatly regretted my endeavors to interfere 
with that popular taste, — while my father and he were con- 
doling with each other on my having been impudent enough 
to think I could tell the public about Turner and Raphael, 
— instead of contenting myself, as I ought, with explaining 
the way of their souls' salvation to them — and what an ami- 
able clergyman was lost in me, — ' Yes,' said my father, with 
tears in his eyes — 'he would luive been a Bishop.' " Prae- 
terita, vol. I., p. 22. 

'• My mother's unquestioning evangelical faith in the lit- 
eral truth of the Bible placed me, as soon as I could con- 
ceive or think, in the presence of an unseen world ; and set 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 193 

my active analytic power early to work on the questions of 
conscience, free will, and responsibility, which are easily 
determined in days of innocence ; bnt are approached too 
often with prejudice, and always with disadvantage, after 
men become stupefied by the opinions, or tainted by the 
sins, of the outer world." Praeterita, vol. I., p. 234. 

At the age of ten or eleven — "It began now to be of some 
importance what church I went to on Sunday morning. My 
father, who was still much broken in health, could not go 
to the long Church of England service, and, my mother 
being evangelical, he went contentedly, or at least submis- 
sively, with her and me to Beresford Chapel, Walworth, 
where the Rev. D. Andrews preached, regularly, a somewhat 
eloquent, forcible, and ingenious sermon, not tiresome to 
him : — the prayers were abridged from the Church Service. 
On the Sunday evening my father would sometimes read us 
a sermon of Blair's, or . . . Mary [his cousin] and I 
got through the evening how we could, over the Pilgrim's 
Progress, Bunyan's Holy War," etc. Fraeterita, vol. I., 
p. 112. 

"I was in 1839 by training, thinking, and the teaching 
of such small experience as I had, as zealous, pugnacious, 
and self-sure a Protestant as you please. The first condi- 
tion of my being so was, of course, total ignorance of Chris- 
tian history ; the second, — one for which the Roman Church 
is indeed guiltily responsible, — that all the Catholic Cantons 
of Switzerland are idle and dirty, and all the Protestant ones 
busy and clean — a most impressive fact to my evangelical 
mother, whose first duty and first luxury of life consisted in 
purity of person and surroundings. The third reason for 
my strength of feeling at this time was a curious one. In 
proportion to the delight I felt in the ceremonial of foreign 
churches, was my conviction of the falseness of religious 
sentiment founded on these enjoyments. I had no foolish 
scorn of them, as the proper expressions of the Catholic 
Faith ; but infinite scorn of the lascivious sensibility which 
could change its beliefs because it delighted in these. 

I never suspected Catholic priests of dishonesty, nor 
doubted the purity of the former Catholic Church." 
[Abridged.] Praeterita, vol. II., chap. I. 



194 NOTES ON PEEFACE. 

It is difficult to define Mr. Ruskiii's jDresent position, but, 
in general terms, he may be said to be a Broad Churcliman. 

Modern Painters. — The whole title is Modern Painters : 
their Siq)eriority in the Art of Lcmchcape Painting to alt 
the Ancient Masters proved by examples of the tr^ie, the 
heautiful, and the intellectual, from tlie works of Modern 
Artists, especiallji from tliose of J. M. \i\ Turner, Esq., R.A. 

The Preface to the first edition (1843) shows that this 
work had, in the bei^inning, a much narrower scope, and 
aimed at eiiects much more transitory than it afterward 
produced. It begins: — "The work now laid before the 
public originated in indignation at the shallow and false 
criticism of the periodicals of the day on the works of the 
great living artist to whom it principally refers [Turner]. 
It was intended to be a short pamphlet, reprobating the 
matter and style of those critiques, and pointing out their 
perilous tendency, as guides of public feeling. But, as point 
after point presented itself for demonstration, I found my- 
self compelled to amplify what was at first a letter to the 
Editor of a Eeview, into something very like a treatise on 
art, to which I was obliged to give the more consistency and 
completeness, because it advocated opinions which, to the 
ordinary connoisseur, will sound heretical." 

The second volume, (1846) here referred to, treats Of the 
Imiiginative and Tlieoretic Faculties. 

then favorite ; favorite at that time. Then is often used 
elliptieally like an adjective; for tlien cliosen, in this in- 
stance. 

Richard Hooker, {155o-in00) an English clergyman. His 
great work was Ecclesiastical Polity. His language is 
beautiful and rhythmic, but his sentences are too long and 
intricate. 

In Praeterita, vol. II., chap. X., Ruskin says of the 
second volume of Modern Painters: — "The style of the 
book was formed on a new model, given me by Osborne Gor- 
don. I was old enough now to feel that neither Johnsonian 
balance nor Byronic alliteration were ultimate virtues in 
English prose ; and I had been reading with care, on Gor- 
don's counsel, both for its arguments and its English, 
Richard Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity." I had always a 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 195 

trick of imitating, more or less, the last book I had read 
with admiration ; and it farther seemed to me that for the 
purposes of argument, (and my own theme was, according 
to my notion, to be argued out invincibly) Hooker's English 
was the perfectest existing model." And in Foi'S Clavigera, 
Letter X., p. 182, he says : — "The affectation of trying to 
write like Hooker and George Herbert was the most inno- 
cent I could have fallen into." 

II. morality as distinct from religion. — " I use then to-day 
[18T0J, as I shall in future use, the word 'religion' as sig- 
nifying the feelings of love, reverence, or dread with which 
the human mind is affected by its conceptions of spiritual 
being ; an<l you know well how necessary it is, both to the 
rightness of our own life, and to the understanding the lives 
of others, that we should always keep clearly distinguished 
our ideas of religion, as thus defined, and of morality, as 
the law of rightness in human conduct. For there are 
many religions, but there is only one morality. There are 
moral and immoral religions, which differ as much in pre- 
cept as in emotion ; but there is only one morality, which 
has been, is, and must be forever, an instinct in the hearts 
of all civilized men, as certain and unalterable as their out- 
Avard bodily form, and which receives from religion neither 
law, nor peace ; but only hope, and felicity." Lectures on 
Art, II., p. 40. 

I shall reprint scarcely anything in this series. — This reso- 
lution was made in IsTl. Bur, in 1873, appeared another 
edition of Modern Painters, with a new Preface in which 
Ruskin says : — "I have been lately so often asked by friends 
on whose Judgment I can rely, to ])ermit the publication of 
another edition of "Modern IPainters" in its original form, 
that I have at last yielded, though witli some violence to 
my own feelings ; for many parts of the first and second 
volumes were written in a narrow enthusiasm, and the 
substance of their metaphysical and religious speculation is 
only justifiable on the ground of its absolute honesty. Of 
the third, fourth, and fifth volumes I indeed mean event- 
ually to re-arrange Avhat I think of permanent iiiterest, for 
the complete edition of my works, but with fewer and less 
elaborate illustrations : nor have I any serious grounds for 



196 NOTES ON PREFACE. 

refusing to allow the book once more to appear in the irregu- 
lar form which it took as it was written, since of the art- 
teaching and landscape description it contains I have little 
to retrench, and nothing to retract. This final edition 
must, however, be limited to a thousand copies, for some 
of the more delicate plates are already worn." 

In 1883, a reprint of the second volume was published, 
in the Preface to which he says : — " My reasons for this 
carefully revised reprint of the second volume of "Mod- 
ern Painters," after so often declaring that I would re- 
print none of the book except the pieces relating to natural 
history, are given in the eighth number of '•'Deuca- 
lion": .... I have made no attempt to amend the 
text. Not a word is omitted : and, I believe, only thj-ee or 
four changed, which were too obscure, or evidently at the 
time inadvertent. A few, now useless, notes 
have been cancelled, — and a few pedantic ones shortened." 
See Deucalion, vol. 11., p. 45. The re-arrangement of the 
third, fourth, and fifth volumes, promised in the Preface to 
the edition of 1ST3, has not yet been made. 

shall omit much of the Seven Lamps. — The Preface to the 
first edition (1849) thus explains the origin of The Seven 
Lamps of ArcMtedure : "The memoranda which form the 
basis of the following essay have been thrown together dur- 
ing the preparation of one of the sections of the third vol- 
ume of ' Modern Painters.' " See also Stones of Venice. 
Ruskin begins the Preface to the third edition (1880) : — ''I 
never intended to have republished this book, which has 
become the most useless I ever wrote, the buildings it 
describes with so much delight being now either knocked 
down or patched u]) into smugness and smoothness more 
iragic than uttermost ruin. But I find the public still like 
the book, . . . and as the germ of what I have since 
written is indeed here, — however overlaid with gilding, and, 
overshot, too splashily and cascade fashion, with gushing of 
words, — here it is given again in the old form ; all but 
some pieces of rabid and utterly false Protestantism, which 
are cut out from book and appendix alike." The fourth and 
last edition (1883) is a reprint of the third, so the work is 
not yet much abbreviated. 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 197 

Stones of Venice. — Euskin says in the Preface to the first 
edition, (3 vols. 1851-1853) : — " I believe there will be found 
in the following pages the only existing account of the 
details of early Venetian architecture on which dependence 
can be placed as far as it goes/"' and in Tlie Croivn of Wild 
Olive, ]). GO : — " The book T called ' Tlie Seven Lamps' was 
to show that certain right states of temper and moral feeling 
were the magic powers by whicli all good architecture, with- 
out exception, had been produced. 'The Stones of Venice ' 
had, from beginning to end, no other aim than to show that 
tbe Gothic architecture of Venice had arisen out of, and 
indicated in all its features, a state of pure national faith, 
and of domestic virtue ; and that its Renaissance architec- 
ture had ainsen out of, and in all its features indicated, a 
state of concealed national infidelity, and of domestic cor- 
ruption." 

The fourth edition of '^ Stones of Venice" (1880) con- 
tains no new preface, and, in a note in Praeterita, vol. II., 
chap. II., Ruslsin says : — "■ I have authorized the republica- 
tion of this book in its origiual text and form, chiefly for 
the sake of its clear, and the reader will find, wholly incon- 
trovertible, statement of the deadly influence of Renaissance 
Theology on the Arts in Italy, and on the religion of the 
world." But in 1883, appeared an unnumbered edition the 
Preface to which states that "this volume is the first of a 
series designed by the author with the purpose of placing 
in the hands of the public, in more serviceable form, those 
portions of his earlier works which he thinks deserving of 
a permanent place in the system of his general teaching. 
They were at first intended to be accompanied by photo- 
graphic reductions of the principal plates in the larger vol- 
umes ; but this design has been modified by the Author's 
increasing desire to gather his past and present writings 
into a consistent body, . . . The second volume of 
this edition [also published] will contain the most useful 
matter out of the third volume of the old one. closed by 
its topical index, abridged and corrected. 3rd May, 1879." 
From this it seems probable that Mr. Ruskin intends to 
issue still another edition of Seven Lamps and Modern 
Painters, uniform with this, and with the edition of his 



198 NOTES ON PREFACE, 

later works of which Sesame and Lilies forms the first vol- 
ume. Of this edition have now appeared : — 

I. Sesame and Lilies 1871 

II. Munera Pnlveris 1872 

III. Aratra Pentilici 1873 

IV. The Ea^■le's Nest 1872 

V. Time and Tide 1872 

VI. The Crown of Wild Olive 1873 

VIL Ariadne Florentina 1873-76 

VIII. Val d'Arno 1874 

IX. The Queen of the Air 1874 

X. The Two Paths 1878 

XL A Joy Forever 1880 

III, Sesame and Lilies. Like Seven Lamps, Notes on the 
Construction of Sheep-folds, and many of Ruskin's other 
titles, this is figurative. Sesame is most familiar in the 
Arabian Nights, where it serves as a pass-word for the rob- 
bers in the tale of Ali Baha and the Forty Thieves. It is a 
herbaceous plant with sweet oily seeds from which is made 
an oil used for food and medicinal purposes. It is a native 
of tropical countries v/here it has been cultivated from very 
ancient times. The lily is the Biblical type of natural beauty. 

In these lectures, Raskin pleads for the necessary union 
of use and beauty ; Sesame, the useful grain, and Lilies, the 
type of unconscious beauty, symbolize these two qualities 
most essential to perfect human development. 

the old preface ; the preface to the second edition. The 
substance of it was afterward incorporated into the first 
volume of Deucalion (18S3). In it, Ruskin deplores the 
desecration of the most beautiful parts of Switzerland by 
tourists whose only aim is to perform feats of reckless dar- 
ing for notoriety, and who can not appreciate the grandeur 
of the scenery they deface. Cf. K. T., ^ 35. 

A lecture given in Ireland. — The Mystery of Life. See 
Mystery of Life. 

fain, gladly. 

passionately (Latin patior, I suffer), under the influence 
of strong feeling, "i mean under tbe term 'passion' to 
include the entire range and agency of the moral feelings ; 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 199 

from the simple patience and gentleness of mind which Avill 
give continuity and fineness to the touch, or enable one per- 
son to work without fatigue, and with good effect, twice as 
long as another, up to the qiialities of character which ren- 
der science possible, and to the incommunicable emotion 
and imagination which are the first and mightiest sources 
of all value in art." U)ito This Last, p. 76. " 

IV. reading valueless books. — " i^ou ought to read books, 
as you take medicine, by advice and not advertisement, 
. . . ask some one who knows good books from bad ones 
to tell vou what to bnv, and be content.'' Fors Olavigera, 
Letter XXL, p. 147. 

vile price. — IsTote that vile is here used in its primary 
meaning of cheap, low j)riced, and, from the context, in- 
cludes the idea of its secondary signification, mean, bas?. 

" Nay, I will even go so far as to say, that we ought not 
to get books too cheaply, '^o book, I belicA-e, is ever worth 
half so much to its reader as one that has been coveted for a 
year at a book-stall, and bought out of saved half-pence, and 
j)erhaps a day or two's fasting." 

wretched and poverty -struck nation. — '• Wc have all lately 
[this was written in 1871] lived ourselves in the daily en- 
deavor to get as much out of our neighbors and friends 
as we could ; and having by this means, indeed, got a good 
deal out of each other, and put nothing into each other, the 
actually obtained result, this da}^ is a state of emptiness in 
jiurse and stomach, for the solace of which our boasted 'in- 
sular ]:)osition' is ineffectual. I have listened to many 
ingenious persons, who say we are better off now than 
ever we were before ; but I know positively that many very 
deserving persons of my acquaintance have great difficulty 
in living under these improved circumstances : . . . and 
thait we cannot be called, as a nation, well off, while so many 
of us are living either in honest or in villainous beggary." 
Fors ClavUjera, Letter L, p. 2. 

V. Kings' Treasuries; books. Men are the Kings of the 
earth, and l)ooks are the storehouses in which the wealth of 
men's thouglit is treasured. 

the two following ones, Queens'' Gardens and lite Mystery 
of Life. — Women are the Queens, ruling with men, and tlie 



200 NOTES ON PREFACE. 



gardens in Avhich they work are tlieir homes. The third 
lecture, The Mystery of Life, discusses the motives, aims, 
and end of living, and Euskin explains in the preface to the 
seventh edition that it has been withdrawn from that edition, 
"not as irrelevant, but as following the subject too far, and 
disturbing the simplicity in whicli the two original lectures 
dwell on their several themes — the majesty of the influence 
of good books and of good women, if we know how to read 
them and how to honor. I might just as well have said the 
- influence of good men and good women, since the best 
strength of a man is shown in his intellectual work, as that 
of a woman in her daily deed and character." 

VI. gist, main point, pith of the matter. 

the letters begun. — Fors Glaviyera ; Letters to th'j Work- 
men and Laborers of Great Britain (1871-1880). These 
letters, ninety-six in number, were published serially, at first 
monthly, but, toward the last, irregularly ; they had for 
their prime object the accumulation of a fund to be called 
St. George's Fund. This was to be used to begin "the 
buying and securing of land in England which shall not be 
built upon, but cultivated by Englishmen with their own 
hands, and such help of force as they can find in wind and 
Avave." Of the title Ruskin says : "I mean it to be read in 
English as Fortune the Nail-bearer," and "Fors the Nail- 
bearer means the strength of Lycui'gus or of Law." 

recent events, the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). 

Orissa, a province of British India, forms the extreme 
south-western portion of Bengal. Its geographical position 
is such that the water supply varies greatly at different sea- 
sons, and the country is subject both to drought and inun- 
dation. Thus the famine in 1865-66, here referred to, which 
destroyed one-fourth of the entii'e population, was followed 
in 186(} by a flood which caused £3,000,000 worth of damage. 

Euskin refers to this famine again in ^ 139, and also in 
The Eaglets Ned, p. 34. where he says : " But we men of 
London slew, a little while since, ^"re hundred thousand men 
(I speak in official terms, and know my numbers) ; and these 
we slew, fathers and children together, by slow starvation — 
simply because, while we contentedly kill our own children 
in competition for places in the Civil Service, we never ask, 



.J 1 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 201 

when once they have got the phices, whether the Civil Ser- 
vice is done. That was our missionarv work in Orissa, some 
three or four years ago." [Abridged.] 

rhetorical ; exaggerated, or distorted for the purpose of 
convincing. 

modern political economy. — Rnskin's idea of true political 
economy is found in Unto litis Last, p. 45 :—" Political 
economy (the economy of a state, or of citizens) consists 
simply in the production, preservation, and distribution, at 
tittest time and place, of useful or pleasurable things" ; and 
(p. 87) " My principles of Political Economy were all in- 
volved in a single phrase, spoken three years ago at Man- 
chester : " Soldiers of the Plow-share as well as Soldiers of 
the Sword " : and they were all summed in a single sen- 
tence in the last volume of Modern Painters — ' Govern- 
ment and co-operation are in all things the Laws of Life ; 
Anarchy and competition the Laws of Death.' " 

He begins Unto This Last with the following condemna- 
tion of modern political economy : — " Among the delusions 
which at different periods have possessed themselves of the 
minds of large masses of the human race, perhaps the most 
curious — certainly the least creditable — is the modern soi- 
disant science of political economy, based on the idea that 
an advantageous code of social action may be determined 
irrespectively of the influence of social affection." See also 
economy. 

Rnskin does not consider the subject from the standpoint 
of the practical political economists, who treat political 
economy as a science investigating the nature of wealth and 
the laws of its production and distribution. His theories 
are regarded as visionary and irrational by all but a few 
devoted disciples. 

Supply and Demand. — It is difficult to give a short and 
clear definition of these terms, but, broadly speaking, they 
are used in the science of political economy to designate 
respectively the offer of commodities or valuable articles 
which are to be exchanged for other commodities, and the 
desire for commodities which can be obtained by the offer 
of other commodities. 

Euskin gives his definition of Demand in Unto This Last , 
9* 



202 NOTES ON PREFACE. 

p, 98 : — " It must be kept in mind, however, that I use the 
word " demand" in a somewhat different sense from econo- 
mists usually. They mean by it "the quantity of a thing 
sold." I mean by it, "the force of the buyer's capable 
intention to buy." In good English, a person's "^'demand "' 
signifies, not what he gets, but what he asks for." 

summarily, briefly, concisely. " A young lady writing to 
me the other day to ask what I really wanted girls to do, I 
answered as follows, requesting her to copy the answer that 
it might serve once for all. I print it accordingly, as pev- 
haps a more simple statement than the one given in Sesame 
and Lilies. 

Woman's work is — 
I. To please people. 
II. To feed them in dainty ways. 

III. To clothe them. 

IV. To keep them orderly. 
V. To teach them. 

I. To please. — A Avoman must be a pleasant creature. 
Be sure that people like the room better with you in it thaTi 
out of it ; and take all pains to get the power of sympathy, 
and the habit of it. 

II. Can you cook ])lain meats and dishes economically 
and savourily ? If not, make it your first business to learn, 
as you find opportunity. When you can, advise and per- 
sonally help, any poor woman within your reach who will be 
glad of help in that matter ; always avoiding impertinence 
or discourtesy of interference. Acquaint yourself with the 
poor, not as tbeir patroness, but their friend. . . . 

III. To clothe. — Set aside a quite fixed portion of your 
time for making strong and pretty articles of dress of the 
best i^rocurable materials. You may use a sewing machine ; 
but what work is to be done (in order that it may be entirely 
sound) with finger and thimble, is to be yoiir special busi- 
ness. First-rate material, however (Mostly, sound work, and 
such prettiness as ingenious choice of color and adaptation 
of simple form will admit, are to be your aims. Head- 
dress may be fantastic, if it be stout, clean, and consistently 
worn, as a Norman paysanne's cap. And you will be more 
Ui-eful in getting up, ironing, etc., a pretty cap for a poor 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 203 

girl who has not taste or time to do it for lierself, than in 
making flannel petticoats or knitting stockings. But do 
both, and give — (don't be afraid of giving ; Dorcas was n't 
raised from tiie dead that modern clergymen might call her 
a fool) — the things you make to those who verily need them. 
What sort of persons these are you have to find out. It is a 
most important part of your work. 

IV. To keep them orderly, — primarily clean, tidy, regu- 
lar in habits. — Begin by keeping tJiuigs in order; soon you 
will be able, to keep people, also. 

Early rising — on all grounds is for yourself indispensable. 
You must be at Avork by latest by six in summer and seven 
in winter. (Of course that puts an end to evening par- 
ties, and so it is a blessed condition in two directions at 
once.) Every day do a little bit of housemaid's work in 
your own house, thoroughly, so as to be a pattern of perfec- 
tion in that kind. Your actual housemaid will then follow 
your lead, ir there's an atom of woman's spirit in her — (if 
not, ask your mother to get another). 

If you have a garden, spend all spare minutes in it in 
actual gardening. If not, get leave to take care of part of 
some friend's, a poor person's, but always out of doors. 
Have nothing to do with greenhouses, still less with hot- 
houses. 

When there are no flowers to be looked after, there are 
dead leaves to be gathered, snow to be swej^t, or matting to 
be nailed, and the like. 

V. Teach — yourself first — to read with attention, and to 
remember with affection, what deserves both, and nothing 
else. Never read borrowed books. To be without books of 
your own is the abyss of penury. Don't endure it. And 
when you've to buy them, you'll think whether they're worth 
reading; which you had better on all jiccounts.'' Fors 
Clavigera. Notes and Correspondence to Lotter XXXIV. 

VII. theology ; the science whicli treats of the existence, 
character, and attributes of God, his laws and government, 
the doctrines we are to believe and the duties we are to 
practise. Theology is objective, it explains man's ideas of 
God ; religion is subjective, it pertains to the relations of 
man to the God in whom his theology teaches him to be- 



204 NOTES ON PREFACE. 

lieve. In The Eagle's JVcst, p. GO, Euskin calls theology, 
"the science of Deity." 

foolishest. — Notice that Ruskin prefers the terminal form 
of comparison to the adverbial, even when euphony would 
seem to demand the latter. 

Fates; the Latin Parcse (from the root pm^s, a part or lot), 
who were the goddesses of Fate, and assigned to every one 
his part, or lot. They were three : Clotho, who held the 
distaff and spun out the thread of human life ; Lachesis, 
the disposer of destinies, who twirled the spindle ; and 
Atropos, the inevitable, who cut the thread when it had 
reached its allotted length. 

nick of time. — A nick (from the Icelandic, meaning to seize 
and carry off) is a hit, a fortunate combination; hence, 
the nick of time means the time when everything is favor- 
able. 

punctual ; usually, promp ; hero used in its rare sense to 
denote exact locality. 

Immaculate and final verity, pure undoubted trutli. Rus- 
kin begins Heavens, Divine, Nations, and Immaculate with 
capitals to give them a slightly satirical conspicuousness. 
He also often uses capitals to make words emphatic. 

most abstruse of ail possible subjects. — See theology. 

VIII. Idleness and Cruelty. — When he wrote this passage, 
Ruskin evidently had in mind the Seven Deadly Sins of the 
Roman Catholic Church, which are murder, lust, covetous- 
ness, gluttony, pride, envy, and idleness. 

He explains himself more fully in Seven Lamps, p. 195 : — 
" The recklessness of the demagogue, the immorality of the- 
middle class, and the effeminacy and treachery of the no- 
ble, are traceable in all these [European] nations to the 
commonest and most fruitful cause of calamity in house- 
liolds — idleness. AYe think too much in our benevolent 
efforts, more multiplied and more vain day by day, of bet- 
tering men by giving them advice and instruction. There 
are few who will take either : the chief thing they need is 
occupation. I do not mean work in the sense of bread, — I 
mean work in the sense of mental interest." 

Of the importance of work he says further, in The Two 
Paths, p. 113, " Though you may liave known clever men 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 205 

who were indolent, yoii never knew a great man who was so. 
When I hear a young man spoken of, as giving promise of 
high genius, the first question I ask about him is always — • 
Does he work ?" 

See t XL, and also K. T., f 36 and 37, and Q. G. 1 91 
and 94 for explanation of Cruelty. It will be seen that Ens- 
kin's conception of it embraces thoughtless, and even uncon- 
scious, neglect as well as active un kindness and abuse. He 
seldom considers especially and distincti\ely the relations 
of man to the lower animals, but in Arrows of the Chace, vol. 
II., p. 142, he says : — "Christ sums them all [the Command- 
ments] into two rigorous positions, and the first position 
for young people is active and attentive kindness to animals. 
. . . There is scarcely any conception left of the charac- 
ter which animals and i3irds might have if kindly treated in 
a wild state." 

six thousand years; that is, since 4004 B.C., the date of 
the creation of man, according to Biblical chronology. 
y4he light of morning, youth. — " The whole period of 
youth is one essentially of formation, edification, instruc- 
tion, I use the words with their weight in them ; intaking 
of stores, establishment in vital habits, hopes and faiths. 
There is not an hour of it but is trembling with destinies, — 
not a moment of which, once past, the appointed w^ork can 
ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold 
iron." Modem Painters, Part V., p. 403. 

sentimentally regret ; to regret witii an emotion springing 
from affection and feeling rather than from reasonable sor- 
row for lost opportunities ; to look back with longing to 
youth as a time of pleasure and of hopes since unfulfilled. 

solemn and sollennis (Latin sollennis or solennis, from 
Oscan soUits, all, and Latin annus, a year), properly that 
which takes place every year, used especially of religious an- 
niversaries; hence, marked with festal religions rites, sacred, 
and also Joyful, in all its character and method. 

Compare the passage beginning, Now, therefore, see that no 
day passes with the following: — ''You must be thankful 
that your Maker has veiled whatever is fearful in your frame 
under a sweet and manifest beauty ; and has made it your 
duty, and your only safety, to rejoice in that, both in your- 



206 NOTES ON PREFACE. 

self and in others : — not indeed concealing, or refusing to 
believe in sickness, if it come ; but never dwelling on it. 

Xow, your wisdom and duty touching soul sickness are 
just the same. 

Ascertain clearly what is wrong with you ; . . . take 
steady means to check yourself in whatever fault you have 
ascertained, and justly accused yourself of. And as soon as 
you are in active way of mending, you will be no more in- 
clined to moan over an undenned corruption. For the rest, 
you will find it less easy to uproot faults, than to choke 
them by gaining virtues. 

Do not think of your faults; still less of others' faults : 
in every person who comes near you, look for what is good 
and strong : honor that ; rejoice in it ; and, as you can. try 
to imitate it : and your faults will drop off, like dead leaves 
vvhen the time comes." Ethics of the Dust, V., p. 107. 

IX. Write down, then. — '' Men's proper business in this 
world falls mainly into three divisions : 

First, to know themselves, and the existing state of things 
they have to do with. 

Second, to be ha|)py in themselves, and in the existing 
state of things. 

Thirdly, to mend themselves, and the existing state of 
things, as far as either are marred or mendable." Modern 
Painters, Part IV., p. 44. 

compass means, from its Latin signification, a passing 
around, hence, wholeextent, and in music, the range of notes 
or sound comprehended by any voice or instrument. 

concerted piece, a composition in parts, for several voices 
or instrument^, as a trio. 

if you have any soul worth expressing. — "A well-disposed 
group of notes in music will make you sometimes wcoj) and 
sometimes iaugh. You can express the depth of all affec- 
tions bv those dispositions of sound."' The Two Paths, 
p. 119.^ 

vulgar (Latin vulgus, the common people, the multitude), 
here ordinary, common, every-day, not coarse and low, 
which are secondary meanings originating in the fact that 
coarseness and ignorance are almost invariable characteristics 
of the vulgar, or lower classes. See also K. T., ^ 28. 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 207 

economy. — " Now we have warped the word ^economy' 
in our English language into a meaning which it has no ' 
business wliatever to bear. In our use of it, it constantly 
signities merely spanng or saving. . . . But that is a 
wholly barbarous use of the word. . . . Economy no 
more means saving money than it means spending money. 
It means, the administration of a house; its stewardship; 
spending or saving, that is, whether money or time, or any- 
thing else, to the best possible advantage. In the simplest 
and clearest definition of it, economy, whether public or 
private, means the wise management of labour ; and it 
means this mainly in three senses : namely, first, applying 
your labour rationally ; secondly, preserving its produce 
carefully ; lastly, distributing its produce seasonably." 
Political Economg of A rt, p. 15. 

go and help in the cooking. — "Cooking means the knowl- 
edge of Medea^ and of Circe, and of Calypso, and of Helen, 
and of Eebekah, and of the Queen of Sheba. It means 
knowledge of all herbs, and_ fruits, and balms, and spices ; 
and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves, and 
savory in meats ; it means carefulness, and inventiveness, and 
watchfulness, and willingness, and readiness of appliance; it 
means the economy of your great-grandmothers, and the sci- 
ence of modern chemists ; it means much tasting and no wast- 
ing ; it means English thoroughness, and French art, and 
Arabian hospitality ; and it means, in fine, that you are to be 
perfectly and always ' ladies ' — ^ loaf-givers ' ; and, as you are 
to see. imperatively, that everybody has something pretty to 
put on — so you are to see, yet more imperatively, that everv- 
bodv htis something ni^e to eat," — Ethics of the Dust, VII., 
p. 145. 

X. sewn with your own fingers. — " 'No machine yet con- 
trived, or hereafter contrivable, will ever equal the fine 
machinery of the human fingers." — The Two Paths, p. 54. 

embroider it. — "Ornamentation involving design, such 
as embroidery, etc., produced solely by industry of hatid, is 
highly desirable in the state dresses of all classes, down 
to the lowest peasantry." — Arroios of the Chace, vol. II., 
p. 155. 

the pawnbroker must sell them. — A makeshift argument. 



208 NOTES ON PREFACE. 

in Ruskin's desire to encourage the almsgiving which bene- 
fits the giver as well as the receiver. 

"We have heard only too much lately of " Indiscriminate 
Charity," with implied reproval, not of the Indiscrimination 
merely, but of the Cl)arity also. We have partly succeeded 
in enforcing on tiie minds of the poor the idea that it is dis- 
graceful to receive ; and are likely, without much difficulty, 
to succeed in persuading not a few of the rich that it is dis- 
graceful to give. But the political economy of a great state 
makes both giving and receiving graceful; and the politi- 
cal economy of true religion interprets the saying that 
"it is m.ore blessed to give than to receive," not as the 
promise of reward in another life for mortified selfishness in 
this, but as a pledge of bestowal upon us of that sweet and 
better nature, which does not mortify itself in giving." Mu- 
nera Pulveris, p. 164. 

Proverbs XXXI. is the chapter containing a description of 
a virtuous woman, 

XI. you are not to be cruel. — " You know that to give alms 
is nothing unless you give thought also ; . . . and you 
know that a little thought and a little kindness are often 
worth more than a great deal of money. Now this charity 
of thought is not merely to bo exercised towards the poor ; 
it is to be exercised towards all men. There is assuredly no 
action of our social life, however unimportant, which, by 
kindly thought, may not be made to have a beneficial influ- 
ence upon others ; and it is impossible to spend the smallest 
sum of money, for any not absolutely necessary purpose, 
without a grave responsibility attaching to the manner of 
spending it. . . . Wliatever we wish to buy, we ought 
first to consider not only if the thing be fit for us, but if the 
manufacture of it be a wholesome and happy one ; and if, 
on the whole, the sum we are going to spend will do as much 
good spent in this way as it would if spent in any other Wiiy. 

It may be said that we have not time to consider all this 
before we make a purcluise. But no time could be spent in 
a more important duty. . . . The plea of ignorance will 
never take away our responsibilities." Lectures on Archi- 
tecture, 11. , p. "^7;^. 

there are degrees of pain. — "■ All measures of reformation 



NOTES ON PEEFACE. 209 

ai^e effeotive in exact proportion to their timeliness : partial 
decay may be cut away and cleansed ; incipient error cor- 
rected ; but there is a point at which corruption can no 
more be stayed, nor wandering recalled ; it has been the 
manner of modern philanthropy to remain passive until that 
precise period, and to leave the sick to perish and the foolish 
to stray^ while it exhausted itself in frantic exertions to 
raise the dead and reform the dust. 

''The recent direction of a great weight of public opinion 
against capital punishment is, I think, the sign of an awak- 
ening perception that punishment is the last and worst 
instrument in the hands of the legislature for the prevention 
of crime. The true instruments of reformation are employ- 
ment and reward — not punishment. Aid the willing, hon- 
our the virtuous, and compel the idle info occupation, and 
there will bo no need for the compelling of any one into the 
great and last indolence of death." — Arroivs of the Chace, 
vol. II., p. 133. 

Believe me the only right principle. — Discipline and Inter- 
ference lies at the very root of all human progress or power ; 
the "■' Let alone " principle is, in all things which man has to 
do with, the principle of death ; that it is ruin to him, certain 
and total, if he lets his land alone — if he lets his fellow- 
men alone — if he lets his own soul alone. That his whole 
life, on the contrary, must, if it is a healthy life, be contin- 
ually one of ploughing and pruning, rebuking and helping, 
governing and punishing ; and that therefore it is only in 
the concession of some great principle of restraint and inter- 
ference in national action that he can ever hope to find the 
secret of protection against national degradation. Political 
Economy of Art, p. 21. See also Unto This Last, p. 21. 

XIV. Sister of Charity. — " Eemember that I do not deny, 
though I can not affirm, the spiritual advantages resulting, 
in certain cases, from enthusiastic religious reverie, and 
from the other practises of saints and anchorites. The evi- 
dence respecting them has never yet been honestly collected, 
much less dispassionately examined : but assuredly, there is 
in that direction a probability, and more than a probability, 
of dangerous error, while there is none whatever in the 
practice of an active, cheerful, and benevolent life. The 



210 MOTES ON PREFACE. 

hope of attaining a higher religious position, wliich induces 
us to encounter, for its exalted alternative, the risk of un- 
healthy error, is often, as I said, founded more on pride 
than piety." Ethics of the Diist. VII., p. IGO. 

XV. It is the large and sad share. — "During the entire 
period of the reign of the late Emperor it was assumed in 
France, as the first principle of fiscal government, that a 
large portion of the funds received as rent from the provin- 
cial labourer should be expended in the manufacture of 
ladies' dresses in Paris. ... As early as the year 1857, 
I had done my best to show the nature of the error, and to 
give warning of ]ts danger ; . . . but the powers of 
trade in Paris had their full way for fourteen years more, — 
with this result, to-day, — as told us in precise and curt terms 
by the Minister of Public Instruction, — ' We have replaced 
glory by gold, work by speculation, faith and honour by 
scepticism. To absolve or glorify immorality ; to make 
much of loose women ; to gratify our eyes with luxury, our 
ears with the tales of orgies ; to aid in the manoeuvres of 
public robbers, or to applaud them ; to laugh at morality, 
and only believe in success ; to love nothing but plea.sure, 
adore nothing but force ; to replace work with a fecundity 
of fancies ; to speak without thinking ; to jirefer noise to 
glory ; to erect sneering into a system, and lying into an 
institution — is this the spectacle tliat we have seen? — is this 
the society that we have been ? ' Of course, other causes, 
besides the desire of luxury in furniture and dress, have 
been at work to produce such consequences ; but the most 
active cause of all has been the passion for these ; passion 
unrebuked by the clergy, and, for the most part, provoked 
by economists, as advantageous to commerce ; nor need we 
think that such results have been arrived at in France only; 
we are ourselves following rapidly on the same road. 
France, in her old wars with us, never was so fatally our 
enemy as she has been in the fellowship of fashion, and the 
freedom of trade." Preface to Mnnera Pulveris. 

m6nageres, French housewives. 

monde and demi-monde, fashionable society, and a class of 
Parisian society comjiosed of disreputable Avomen. 

premieres representations. — In France, the audience at the 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 211 

first performance {premiere representation) of a new play or 
opera is principally composed of the leaders of the fashion- 
able and literary worlds, and the success or failure of the 
production depends in a great measure upon its reception by 
this "first night" audience, who express their approval or 
disapproval most vehemently. 

mobiliers, furniture. 

vaudevilles, songs of lively character, frequently embody- 
ing a satire on some person or event ; street-songs often of 
doubtful morality. The name comes from Vau-de-vire, a 
village in Normandy, where Oliver Basselin, at the end of 
tlie fourteenth century, composed such songs. 

Anonymas, women of doubtful moral character. 

6meutes, liots. 

vous etes anglaise, etc. — "You are English; we believe 
you ; the English always sjieak the truth." 

XVI. EUesmere, Francis Egerton, first Earl of (1800-1857). 
He is chiefly known for his services to literature and the fine 
arts. When he was about twenty, he published a translation 
of Faust. 

It is probable that the speech here mentioned is the one 
made by Lord EUesmere, May 28, 1852, in behalf of the 
Baroness von Beck. She was an authoress of some note, 
who, shortly after her arrival in England, w^as arrested on 
some obscure charge as she was returning from a reception. 
Being thrown into prison in her ball dress, she died from 
exposure in a few days. A petition was presented complain- 
ing of the conduct of her persecutors, and it is presumable 
that some circumstances in her case may have suggested to 
Lord EUesmere the Gretchen of Faust. 

(note) cpiXj], Gr., dear, 

XVII. Medea was the daughter of Aetes, king of Colchis, 
and wife of Jason. When hei- husband deserted her to marry 
Creusa, she sent a poisoned robe as a gift to the bride, killed 
her children, and fled to Athens where she married Aegeus. 

the daughter of Herodias. — Ac the probable instigation of 
Herodias, her daughter obtained from Herod the promise of 
anything she might ask for, and, at her mother's command, 
demanded the head of John the Baptist, which was given 
her. 



212 NOTES ON PREFACE. 

She is an example of willing obedience to a command 
prompted by hate and revenge ; an obedience which shirks 
the resjjonsibility of the crime Avhich it desires and 
causes. 

XVIII. what I am . . . it is well the reader should 
know; because, as Ru skin says in Lectures on Art, p. 71: 
" You can, m truth, understand a man's word only by 
understanding his temper." 

ethical, relating to manners or morals. 

autobiography. Praeterita, Outlines of Scenes and 
Thoughts perhaps Worthy of Memory in my Past Life 
(188G) contains in the twenty-four chapters now (1888) pub- 
lished sufficient "details of autobiography " to give a very 
satisfactory idea of Ruskin's early life, and his " methods of 
study and general principles of work." 

Guido Guinicelli or Guinizeili was an Italian poet born at 
Bologna, of the celebrated family of de. Principe. He was 
a soldier or, some say, a magistrate, but, in 1274, was ex- 
pelled from Bologna, for having espoused the cause of the 
l-*]mperor Frederick. He died in 1276. He is considered 
the reviver of Italian poetry. Dante, in The Purgatory, 
says, in addressing him, " You are my father, and the father 
of other poets better than I, whom you taught to com- 
pose love verses, full of sweetness and grace.'" He depicted 
chivalric love, and introduced, in his love poetry, philoso- 
phic ideas and lofty sentiments. He left five sonnets, four 
canzone, and some unpublished pieces preserved in the Vati- 
can library. 

Marmontel, Jean Fran9oitj (1723-1799), was a poet and 
moralist, but is best known by his Elements de Litterature. 

Ruskin describes him thus : — " Me was a French Gentle- 
man of the old school ; not noble, nor, in French sense, even 
' gentilhomme ' ; but a peasant's son, who made his way into 
Parisian society bv gentleness, wit, and a dainty and candid 
literary power. He became one of the humblest, yet hon- 
estest, placed scholars at the court of Louis XV., and wrote 
pretty, yet wise, sentimental stories in finished French." 
[Contes Moranx.] Fors Claviqera. Letter XIV., p. 37. 

Swift, Jonathan, Dean (,f St. Patrick's, Dublin _ (1667- 
1745), was the greatest of English satirists. Born in pov- 



NOTES ON PREFACE. 213 

eity, and educated at the expense of a relative, he felt keenly 
the disadvantages of his position. His nature, naturally 
proud, egotistical and arbitrary, became more so under the 
influence of many galling disappointments, and he revenged 
himself against the world in a succession of books and polit- 
ical pamphlets, written in a strong, pure, English style, 
and satirizing mercilessly all the weaknesses, follies, and 
vices of men. His best known works are Tlie Tale of a 
Tub, Drapier Letters, and Gnllive7''s Travels. 



KINGS' TREASURIES. 



1. Sesame ; see Sesame and Lilies. 
Kings' Treasuries ; see two following ones. 

Lucian: the Fisherman. — Lncian, one of the principal 
essay-writers and satirists of the post-Christian era, lived 
al)out the middle of the second century. In his dialogue of 
the Fisherman (Piscator), Lucian holds up to ridicule the 
philosophers of his time, and when asked by what means he 
can bring them together, replies, — Easy enough ; not by 
discussing truth, but by a bribe of " a cake of sesame and 
two minae (ten pounds)." This quotation expresses Rus- 
kin's estimate of the aims of modern education ; for he con- 
siders that the modern education leads men to desire wisdom, 
not for itself, but for the material advantages that it brings, 
the cake of sesame and the ten pounds. 

Instead of the quotation from Lucian given here, the first 
edition has iS, avri)^ e^sXevaaraL aptoi . . . uai xoafta 
Xouffiov. — Job xxviii. 5, 6. 

In the first edition, this lecture begins, " I believe, ladies 
and gentlemen, that my first duty, etc. ; " and there are a few 
other variations in this paragraph from the text as given here. 

ambiguity. — The title is ambiguous, because it gives no 
hint of the subject-matter of the lecture. 

regnant [Lat. regnare, to rule] is the usual term applied 
to ruling sovereigns. 

2. "position in life." — "The very removal of the massy 
bars which once separated one class of society from another, 
has rendered it tenfold more shameful in foolish people's, 
i. e., in most people's eyes, to remain in the lower grades of 
it than ever it was before. When a man born of an artisan 
was looked upon as an entirely different species of animal, 
from a man born of a noble, it made him no more uncom- 
fortable or ashamed to remain that different species of ani- 
mal, than it makes a horse ashamed to remain a horse, and 



216 NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 

not to become a giraffe. But now that a man may make 
money, and rise in the world, and associate himself unre- 
proached, with people once far above him, not only is the 
natural discontentedness of humanity developed to an un- 
heard-of extent, whatever a man's position, but it becomes 
a veritable shame to him to remain in the state he was 
born in, and everybody thinks it his duty to try to be a 
" gentleman." Persons who have any influence in the man- 
agement of public institutions for charitable education 
know how common this feeling has become. . . . There 
is no real desire for the safety, tiie discipline, or the moral 
good of the children, only a panic horror of the inexpressi- 
bly i^itiable calamity of their living a ledge or two lower on 
the molehill of the world — a calamity to be averted at any 
cost whatever, of struggle, anxiety, and shortening of life 
itself. I do not believe that any greater good could be 
achieved for the country, than the change in public feeling 
on this head, which might be brought about by a few 
benevolent men undeniably in the class of "gentlemen," 
who would, on principle, enter into some of our common- 
est trades, and make them honorable ; showing that it was 
possible for a man to retain his dignity, and remain, in the 
best sense, a gentleman, though part of his time was every 
day occupied in manual labor, or even in serving customers 
over a counter. I do not in the least see why courtesy, and 
gravity, and sympathy with the feelings of others, and 
courage, and truth, and piety, and what else goes to make 
up a gentleman's character should wot be found behind a 
countei' as well as elsewhere, if they were demanded, or 
even hoped for, there." Fre-Baphaelitism, pp. 8 and 9. 

But an education. — " And this has been the real cause of 
failure in efforts for education hitherto — whether from 
above or below. There is no honest desire for the thing 
itself. The cry for it among the lower orders is because 
they think that, when once they have got it, they must 
become upper orders. . . . And very sternly I say to 
you — and say from sure knowledge — that a man had better 
not know how to read or write, than receive education on 
such terms." li^ne and Tide, Letter XVI., p. 10;2. 

" The healthy sense of progress, which is necessary to the 



NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 2 IT 

strength and liai^piness of men, does not consist in the 
anxiety of a struggle to attain higher place or rank, but in 
gradually perfecting the manner, and accomplisbins^ the 
ends, of the life which we have chosen, or which circum- 
stances have determined for us." Time and Tide, Letter 
II., p. 8. 

double-belled doors. — In London, the first-class houses have 
two bells at the principal door ; one for visitors and the 
other for persons calling on business. The area, or base- 
ment door, is for servants and tradespeople. 

"this we pray . . . all we pray for," is not in the 
first edition. 

3. the last infirmity of noble minds. — From Milton's 
Lycidas : — 

'' Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise, 
That last infirmity of noble minds."' 
impulsive is used here in its primary sense of driving or 
impelling. 

catastrophe [from Greek words meaning dow7i and to 
turn^', an event producing a subversion or overturning of 
the order of things ; or, as used here, a final event of a dis- 
astrous nature. 

4. especially of all modern effort. — ''We have absolutel}^ 
no motive but vanity and the love of money — no others, as 
naticras, than these, whatever we may have as individuals. 
And as the thirst of vanity thus increases, so the temptation 
to it." 27^6! Study of Architecture, p. 14. 

mortal [from Lat. mors, death], deadly. — ''Recollect that 
'mors' means death and delaying; and 'vita' means life 
and growing : and try always, not to mortify yourselves, but 
to vivify yourselves." Ethics of the Dust, p. 130. 

gangrenous ; gangrene is the first stage of mortification, 
or loss of life, in living flesh. 

various.— In the sense of diversified, Ruskin often uses 
this word, with a noun in the singular. 

diocese [from a Greek word meaning honseheeping'\ is the 
district over which a bishop exercises his authoritative power. 

My Lord. — The bishops of the Church of England arc 
members of the House of Lords, and are addressed as " My 
Lord." 

10 



218 NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 

5. acquisitiveness, desire of possession. 
collateral means by the side of, accompanying, 
beneficent, doing well (Lat. bene, well, aw^faciens, doing), 

should be distinguished from benevolent (Lat. hene, well, 
and volens, wishing), though the words are often used inter- 
changeably, 

6. associations. — This word is here used in the sense of 
associates, i.e., persons joined to us. 

7. apathy, insensibility to seusation either of pleasure or 
pain. 

privy councO ; " a number of distinguished persons selected 
by a sovereign to advise in the administration of govern- 
ment.'' — Blackstone. 

8. ephemeral; literally, that which lasts but a day. 

9. Cf. " Perhaps you think that literature means noth- 
ing else than talking ? that the triple powers of science, 
art, and scholarship, mean simply the powers of knowing, 
doing, and saying. But that is not so in any wise. The 
faculty of saying or writing anything well, is an art, Just as 
much as any other ; and founded on a science as definite as 
anv other." The EagWs Nest, p. ;3. 

10. "aueen of the Air," § 106.— ''Now I have here 
asserted two things, — first, the foundation of art in moral 
character; next, the foundation of moral character in war. 
I must make both these assertions clearer, and prove them. 

First, of the foundation of art in moral character. Of 
course art-gift and amiability of disposition are two diifer- 
ent things ; a good man is not necessarily a painter, nor 
does an eye for colour necessarily imply an honest mind. 
But greiit art implies the union of both powers ; it is the 
expression, by an art-gift, of a pure soul. If the gift is not 
there, we can have no art at all ; and if the soul — and a i-ight 
soul too — is not there, the art is bad, however dexterous." 

11. readers. — The first edition has leaders. 
entr6e, Fr., right of entrance. 

inherent, closely connected, hence, and more commonly, 
inborn. 

12. Elysian gates close the entrance to Elysium, which 
is, in Grecian mythology, the dwelling-place assigned to 
happy souls after death. 



SroTES ON kings' treasuries. 219 

Faubourg St. Germain is the aristocratic quarter of Paris; 
it has become a synonyme for any exclusive and desirable 
society. 

13. parables, tales of something real in life or nature 
from which morals are drawn for instruction. " But a fate 
rules the words of wise men, which make their words truer, 
and worth more, than the men themselves know." Froser- 
pina, p. 19. 

15. "literature." — In Mornings in Florence, p. 113, 
Ruskin calls Literature or the Art of Letters, '' tlie art 
of faithfully reading what has been written for our learn- 
ing ; and of clearly writing what we would make immortal 
of our thoughts. Power which consists first in recognizing 
letters ; secondly, in forming them ; thirdly, in the under- 
standing and choice of words which errorless shall express 
our thought. Severe exercises all. reaching — very few liv- 
ing persons know, how far ; beginning properly in child- 
hood, then only to be truly acquired."' 

He again defines literature in tlie Eagle's Nest, pp. 5 and 6, 
as, — " The modification of Ideal things by our ideal Power," 
and says, — "But now observe. If this [definition] be a 
just one, we ought to have a word for literature, with the 
' Letter ' left out of it. It is true that, for the most part, the 
modification of ideal things by our ideal power is not com- 
plete till it is expressed ; nor even to ourselves delightful, 
till it is communicated. To letter it and label it— to 
inscribe and to word it rightly, — this is a great task, and it 
is the part of literature which can be most distinctly taught. 
But it is only the formation of its body — and the soul of it 
can exist without the body; but not at all the body without 
the soul ; for that is true no less of literature than of all 
else in us or of us — "litera occidit, spiritus autera vivificat " 
[the letter kills, but the spirit makes alive]. 

nomenclature, calling of things by their names, from the 
Lat. nomeii, name, and calare, to call. 

peerage, a body of peers or nobles, suggests that words 
acquire rank through long usage by the best authors ; and 
thus a body of words whose history is ancient and splendid 
is aptly compared with the peerage. 

canaille, Fr., rabble. 



220 NOTES ON kings' TREASURIEa 

noblesse, Fr., nobility. 

parliament, an assembly for speaking. 

16. quantity. — Latin poetry does not depend, like Eng- 
lish, npon accent and rhyme ; but is measured like musical 
strains by tlie length, or quantity, of its syllables. 

equivocally [Lac. aequn><, eqnal, and vox, voice], liter- 
ally, Avith two voices ; in a double sense. 

masked words. — "'The reader mnst not think tliat any 
care can be misspent in tracing the connexion and power of 
the words which we have to use in the sequel. Much edu- 
cation sums itself in making men economize their words, 
and understand them. Nor is it possible to estimate the 
harm which has been done, in matters of higher specula- 
tion and conduct, by loose verbiage, though we may guess 
at it by observing the dislike which people show to having 
anything about their religion said to them in simple words, 
because then they understand it." Munera Pulveris, p. 91. 

chamae-leon [literally, in the Greek, ground-lion], is a 
kind of lizard that changes with the color of the objects 
about it. 

17. mongrel, of mixed breed. 

Greek or Latin words. — " Whenever you write or read Eng- 
lish, write it pure, and make it pure if ill-written, by avoid- 
ing all unnecessary foreign, especially Greek, forms of 
words yourself, and translating them when used by others. 
Above all, make this a practice in science. Great part of 
the supposed scientific knowledge of the day is simply bad 
English, and vanishes the moment you translate it." Veii- 
calion, Vol. I., p. 201. 

words for an idea. — The first edition hixs forms for a word. 

awful. — The first edition has respectable. 

it to be vulgar. — The first edition has to discredit it. 

"biblos.," inner bark of the papyrus ; the paper made of 
this bark ; hence, a paper, book, 

" biblion" [diminutive of hihlos'], a paper, scroll. Its stem, 
biblio, appears in such com])ounds as bibliographer, a writer 
of books ; bibliolatry, excessive reverence for the mere letter 
of the Bible; and bibliomaniac; — "If a man spends lav- 
ishly on his library, you call him mad — a bibliomaniac." 
Sesame and Lilies, ^ 32. 



NOTES ON king's TREASURIES. 221 

many simple persons, — The first edition adds, ivho toor- 
sliip the Letter of God's Word instead of its Spirit, just as 
other idolators worship His picture instead of His pres- 
ence. 

18. uaTaupivGo, to condemn. 

"ecclesia" was onginall}^ the public legislative assembly 
of the Athenians. It now means a congregation, a church; 
and is found in such words as, ecclesiarcJi, a ruler of the 
church, and ecclesiastic, or ecclesiastical, pertaining to the 
church. 

"priest" . . . "presbyter." — " We should never liave 
known i\vAi priest meant originally an elder, unless \vc had 
traced it back to its original form presbyter, in which a 
Greek scholar at once recognizes the comparative oi pre&ljys, 
old." Max Miillcr. 

There has been great controversy whether in the 
Cliristian church, there be properly any such officer as 
priest, i.e., a person set apart for the performance of 
sacrifice. Concerning this discussion, Ruskin says, — 
"It would have been Just as possible for the Clergy 
of the early Church to call themselves Levites, as to 
call themselves (ex officio) Priests. The whole function 
of Priesthood was, on Christmas morning, at once and 
forever gathered into His Person who was born at Beth- 
lehem ; and thenceforward all wlio are united with Him, 
and who with Him make a sacrifice of themselves ; that is to 
say, all members of the Invisible Church, become at the 
instant of their conversion, Priests. As for the unhappy 
retention of tiio term Priest in our English Prayer-book, so 
long as it w^as understood to mean nothing but an upper, 
order of Church officer, licensed to tell the congregation 
from the reading-desk that "' God pardoneth all them that 
truly repent" — there was little harm in it ; but, now that 
this order of Clergy begins to presume upon a title wdiich, if 
it means anything at all, is simply short for Presbyter, and 
has no more to do with the word Hiereus [a sacrificor] than 
with the word Levite, it is time that some order should be 
taken both with the book and the Clergy." [Abridged] 
Notes on the (Construction of Slieepfolds, pp. 19 and 20. 

The early Christian Church by adopting the word ecclesia 



222 NOTES ON kings' treasuries, 

foi" a meeting of the church, assumed thereby the temporal 
[see temporal] power of the ecclesia, or " citizen-assembly." 
To this usurpation of temporal power, many of the wars in 
Europe, — wars arising from the struggles between the 
Giielphs and Ghibelliues, between the Church of Kome and 
the Protestants, may be traced, though they were " in the 
heart of them founded on deeper causes." 

19. dialects [literally, a speaking through] are spoken 
languages as distinct from literary ones ; especially the nat- 
ural varieties of expression that spring up in different parts 
of a country. 

Greek alphabet. — ^" Whether you can learn Greek or not, 
it is well (and ])erfectly easy,) to learn the Greek alphabet, 
that, if by chance a questionable word occur in your Testa- 
ment, or in scientific books, you may be able to read it, and 
even look it out in a dictionary." Fors Clavigera, Let- 
ter LXI., p. 11. 

Max Miiller (born 1823).—" Prof. Max Miiller teaches 
you the science of language." Eagle's Nest, p. 4. He is a 
German by birth, but has lived in England the greater part 
of his life. He was at one time professor of Modern Lan- 
guages at Oxford. 

20. Lycidas was written by Milton in 1637. "In this 
monody the author bewails a learned friend unfortunately 
drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637 
— and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, 
then in their height." 

pilot, St. Peter. 

amain, with sudden force. 

enow, the old form, usually jilural, of enough. 

scrannel. ]30or, withered. 

grim wolf, the devil, the great enemy of the Christian 
sheepfold. 

MUton (1608-1674), one of the most celebrated English 
authors ; now chiefly known by his great poems, but, dur- 
ing his life, intimately associated in the political and relig- 
ious conflicts of the time, and the author of voluminous 
tracts and treatises. 

episcopal function, office and authority as a bishop. Epis- 
coj^al, governed by, or belonging to bishops, conies from 



NOTES ON kings' treasuriks. 223 

the Greek episcopos, overseer ; whence bishop is also 
derived. 

Bishops of Eome. — According to Church history, St. Peter, 
to whom Christ gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven 
[Matt. xvi. 19] was the first l)ishop of Eome. This bishop- 
ric afterwards grew so powerful ttiat its holder became the 
head of the Eoman Catholic (Jhurch and is knoAvn as the 
Pope, from the Ijnixn. papa, father. 

21. "lords over . . . to the flock." — 1 Peter v., 3. 

22. metaphor is a rhetorical figure founded upon the 
resemblance which one object bears to another. 

bishop's office. — "If then, the reader will look at the 
analysis of Episcopacy in " Sesame and Lilies," the first 
volume of all my works ; next at the chapter on Episcopacy 
in " Time and Tide ; " and lastly, refer to what he can 
gather in the past series of ' Fors,' he will find the united 
gist of all to be that Bishops cannot take, much less give, 
account of men's souls unless they first take and give 
account of their bodies; and that, therefore, all existing 
poverty and crime in their dioceses, discoverable by human 
observation, must be, wl}eu they are Bishops indeed, clearly 
known to, and describable by them, or their subordinates." 
Fors Clavigera, Letter LXII., p. 27. 

23. cretinous, idiotic. A cretin is a kind of idiot fre- 
quent in the low valleys of the M])s,. 

putrescent, becoming foul tiirougli decay. 

24. Dante. — It is impossible to read Euskin with full 
appreciation, without knowing at least the outline of 
Dante's life and of his greatest work, the Divina Commedia, 
and without striving to enter into the calm spirit of this 
num, by whom more than any other, Euskin has been influ- 
enced. For to Euskin, Dante is not only '• the greatest 
poet of that [the close of the 13th] century or perhaps any 
age'°* but he is also "the central man of all the world, as 
representing in perfect balance the imaginative, moral, and 
intellectual faculties all at their highest " Modern Paint- 
ers, Part IV., p. 18. Sto7ies of Venice, Vol. III., p. 
158. 

Dante degli Alighieri was born at Florence, in \ 265, of a 
noble family. When he was oidy nine years old, he met 



224 NOTES ON kings' treasuries. 

Beatrice Portinari. This meeting with her, who, during 
life, was ever the "glorious lady" to Dante, and who, after 
death, became a holy ideal of perfect womanhood to him, 
colored all the after course of his life. He himself writes, 
— '• I say that from that time forward Love swayed my 
soul, which was even then espoused to him." 

It is probable that Dante never sought Beatrice in mar- 
riage, nor is there any reason to believe that she ever knew 
of his love ; at an early age, she was affianced to Simon- 
edei Bardi, whose wife she became at the age of twenty. 
In 1290, she died, at the age of twenty-four, and Dante 
wrote concerning her death, — " If it be the pleasure of him 
through whom all things live, that my life hold out yet a 
few years, I hope to say that of her, which was never yet 
said of any woman." 

Dante himself married in 1291, but never saw his wife or 
family after 130 L ; for in this year he was exiled from 
Florence for political reasons and never again returned 
to his native city. He died in Eavenna in 1331. Of his 
exile he says, '' Through almost all parts where this language 
[Italian] is spoken, a wanderer, well-nigh a beggar, 1 jiave 
gone, showing against my will the wound of fortune. Truly 
I have been a vessel without or sail or rudder, driven to 
distant ports, estuaries, and shores, by that hot blast, the 
breath of grievous poverty." 

His great poem, the Divine Comedy (Divina Commcdia), 
which Euskin calls " a love-poem to his dead lady," was 
written during these years of exile. It coiisists of three 
parts, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, and its "literal sub- 
ject is," as Dante says, "the state of the soul after death 
simply considered." It pictures Dante, beset with doubts 
and fears, met by Virgil and led by him through Hell and 
Purgatory to the Terrestrial Paradise. Here Beatrice 
descends to meet him, and "throughout the ascents of 
Paradise she is his teacher, interpreting for him the most 
difficult truths, divine and human, and leading him, with 
rebuke upon rebuke from star to star"; until at last he 
attains the end of his vision in the final blessedness of the 
entire surrender of his will to the love of God. 

"have taken away , . . themselves." — Luke xi. 52. 



NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 225 

"he that watereth . . . himself." — Pro v. xi. 25. 
rock-apostle, St. Peter. Cf. Matt. xvi. 18. 
"Take him . . . cast him out." — Matt. xxii. 13. 
25. "to mix the . . . heavenly doubts." — In Emer- 
son's poem, To Rhea, these lines occur : — 

"He mixes music with her thoughts, 
And saddens her with heavenly doubts." 

The foot-note to ^ 25 is not in the first edition. 

Shakespeare (1564-1G16). — See Shakespeare. 

Richard III. . . . Cranmer. — In Richard III., — where 
the Mayor and citizens of London are gulled into a belief in 
Richard's piety by his hypocritical appearance before them 
reading a book of in-ayers and attended by two bishops, — 
Shakespeare evinces no sympathy with their credulous ven- 
eration for established forms of religion ; while in Henry 
VIII. he shows very plainly, iii his delineation of Cranmer, 
the founder of the English Protestant Church, his sympa- 
thy with the spirit of freedom that Protestantism seemed 
to embody. See Rich. III., Act iii., sc. vii., and Henry 
VIII., Act v., sc. iv. 

St. Francis and St. Bominic— St. Francis (1182-1226) was 
the founder of tbe great order of Eranciscan friars and St. 
Dominic (I170-l'221j of the Dominicans. Dante says of 
them, "Meet is it that where the one is the other should 
be brought in, so that as they served in one warfare, so 
their glory should shine together. The one [St. Erancis] 
was -all seraphic in ardour, the other [St. Dominic] was 
upon earth a splendour of cherubic light." See Dante's 
Paradiso, Cantos XI. and XIl. Eor Ruskin's description 
of these saints, read Mornings in Florence. 

Virgil (70 B. C.-19 B. C.').— In the Divina Commedia, 
Virgil, typifies Earthly Wisdom, and is Dante's guide 
through llell and Purgatory and is constantly spoken of by 
him with great respect and love. 

him who made — Caiaphas the high-priest. " Now Cai- 
aphas was he which gave counsel to the Jevv^s that it was ex- 
pedient that one man should die for the people," John xviii. 
14. For this sin Dante represents him in the Inferno, 
' cross-fixed in the ground with three stakes ; ' and Virgil 

10* 



226 N0TE3 ON kings' TREASURIES. 

savs, as be looks upon liim there, ''disteso (in croce) tanto 
viimente nell 'eterno esilio," r.f., "distended (on the cross) 
so ignominioiisly in the eternal exile.'" 

him whom Bante ..." come il frate che confessa lo perfido 
assassin," " (I stood) like a friar who is confessing a 
treacherous assassin;" the treacherous assassin is Pope 
Nicholas III., who died in 1281, after having enriched his 
nephews by open simony, and by every other means in his 
power. 

Aiighieri, Dante. 

temporal. [From the Lat. tenipus, time] Of, or pertain- 
ing to time, that is, to passing time as opposed to the 
eternity ; secondarily, as used here, civil or political as 
opposed to spiritual or ecclesiastical. 

articles, statements of belief ; as for instance, the Thirty- 
nine Articles of rhe English Church. 

Ecclesiastical Courts. — Ecclesiastical, of, or pertaining to 
the Oharcii ; see ecclesia. 

Ecclesiastical Courts are courts presided over by bishops, 
and held to determine questions concerning the faith, rites, 
and discipline of the church. 

26. "Breakup . . . thorns." — Jer. iv. 3. 

" You can know what you are, only by looking out of 
yourself. Measure your own powers with those of others ; 
compare your own interests with those of others ; try to 
understand wliat you appear to them, as well as what they 
appear to you : and judge of yourselves, in all things rela- 
tively and subordiuately ; not positively: starting always 
with the wholesome conviction of the ]irobability that there is 
nothing particular about you."' Etliics of the Dust, p. 109. 

fallow ground ; ground that has been left unplanted for 
some time after having been ploughed, and consequently 
sn])posed to be better adapted for seed. 

27. " sensation." — " By sensibility, I mean natural percep- 
tions of beauty, titness, and rightness ; or of what is lovely, 
decent, and just ; faculties dependent much on race, and 
the junnal signs of fine breeding in man ; but cultivable 
also by education, and necessarily perishing without it. 
True education has, indeed, no other function than the 
dcveloimient of these faculties, and of the relative will. It 



NOTES ON kings' treasueies. 227 

has been the great error of modern intelligence to mistake 
science for education. ' You do not educate man by telling 
what he knew not, but by making liim what he was not." 
Mimera Pulveris. p. 99. 

28. "vulgarity." — '* Vulgarity is indicated by coarseness 
of language or manners, only so far as this coarseness has 
been contracted under circumstances not necessarily pro- 
ducing it. The illiterateness of a Spanish or Calabriun 
peasant is not vulgar, because they had never an oppor- 
tunity of acquiring letters ; but the illiterateness of an 
English school-boy is. So again, provincial dialect is not 
vulgar ; but cockney dialect, the corruption, by blunted 
sense of a finer language continually heard, is so in a deep 
degree ... So also of personal defects, those only are 
vulgar which imply insensibility or dissipation. 
We may conclude tliat vulgarity consists in a deadness of the 
heart and body, resulting from prolonged, and especially 
from inherited conditions of "degeneracy,'^ or literally 
"unracing; " — geutlemanliuess, being another word for an 
intense humanity. And vulgarity shows itself primarily in 
dulness of heart, not in rage or cruelty, but in inability to 
feel or conceive nobie character or emotion. This is its 
essential, pare, and most fatal form. Dulness of bodily 
sense and general stuj)idity, with such forms of crime as 
peculiarly issue from stupidity are its material manifesta- 
tions." Modern Painters, Part IX., pp. 270 and 274. 

The Mimosa, better known as the sensitive plant, closes 
its leaves at a touch. The name "mimosa" comes from a 
Greek word, to mimic, because in this movement of shrink- 
ing from rude handling, it imitates an animal faculty. 

29. just. — The first edition has righteous. 

catastrophe means, here, a change that produces the final 
event ; see catastrophe. 

man by man. — Tlie first eelition adds looman by tooman, 
child by child. 

30. an opinion. — The first edition has a passion. 
Heither does a great nation . . . " We have taken up 

the benevolent idea, forsooth, tliat justice is to be prevent- 
ive instead of vindictive ; and we imagine that we are to 
punish, not in anger, but in expediency ; not that we may 



228 NOTES ON kings' treasuries. 

give cleseryecl pain to the person in fault, but that we may 
frighten other people from committing the same fault. 
The beautiful theory of this non-vindictive justice is, that 
having convicted a man of a crime worthy of death, we 
entirely pardon the criminal, restore him to his place in 
our affection and esteem, and then hang him, not as a mal- 
efactor, but as a scarecrow. That is the theory. And the 
practice is, tiiat we send a child to prison for a month for 
stealing a handful of walnuts, for fear that other children 
should come to steal more of our walnuts. And we do not 
punisli a swindler for ruining a thousand families, because 
we think swindling is a wholesome excitement to trade." 
Lectures on Art, p. 89. 

'* Crime cannot be hindered by punishment; it will 
always find some shape and outlet, unpunishable or un- 
closed. Crime can only be truly hindered by letting no 
man grow \^'p a criminal — by taking away the u'ill to 
commit sin ; not by mere punishment of its commission. 
Crime, small and great, can only be truly stayed by educa- 
tion — not the education of the intellect only, which is, on 
some men, wasted, and for others mischievous ; but educa- 
tion of the heart, which is alike good and necessary for all." 
Time and Tide, Letter XV., pp^OO, 97. 

opium at the cannon's mouth. — In the first part of this cen- 
tury the Chinese government began to make strong efforts to 
keep British merchants from importing opium into China, 
but unsuccessfully ; for large quantities were smuggled into 
the country in spite of iDromiscs to the contrary made by 
the British government. Finally, a war arose between the 
two countries, 18-40-4 •3, in which the English obtained such 
decided advantages that they were able to dictate terms to 
the Chinese and force them to import opium. There w^as 
trouble between the two countries again in 1S5G and in ISGO, 
resulting in favor of the English. 

unhappy crazed boy and clodpate Othello. — These refer 
probably to some newspaper notices of events of temporary 
interest. 

perplexed in the extreme. — Othello : Act V., Sc. 2. 

And, lastly, a great nation. ... " We English, as a 
nation, know not, and care not to know, a single broad or 



NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. ' 229 

basic principle of human justice. We have only our in- 
stincts to g'uicle us. We will hit anybody again who hits 
us. We will take care of our own families and our own 
pockets ; and we are characterized in our present phase of 
enlightenment mainly by rage in speculation, lavish expend- 
iture on suspicion or panic ; generosity whereon generosity 
is useless ; anxiety for the souls of savages, regardlessness 
of those of civilized nations ; enthusiasm for liberation of 
bhicks, apathy to enslavement of whites ; proper horror of 
regicide, polite respect for populicide ; sympathy with those 
whom we can no longer serve, and reverence for the dead, 
whom we have ourselves delivered to death." Arrnivs of the 
Chare. Vol. IL, p. 19. 

SO, foot note. Who is to do no work, and for what pay ? — 
" This ought to be the first lesson of every rich man's polit- 
ical code. '"' Sir," his tutor should early say to him, "you 
are so placed in society — it may be for your misfortune", it 
musi be for your trial— that you are likely to be maintained 
all your life by the labour of other men. You will have to 
make shoes for nobody, but some one will have to make a 
great many for yon. You will have to dig ground for no- 
body, but some one will have to dig through every summer's 
hot day for you. You will build houses and make clothes 
for no one, but many a rough hand must knead clay, and 
many an elbow be crooked to the stitch, lo keep that body 
of yours warm and fine. Now remember, whatever yon and 
your work may be worth, the less your keep costs, the bet- 
ter. It does not cost money only. It costs iiegradation. 
You do not merely employ these people. You also tread 
upon them. It cannot be helped ; — you have your place, 
and they have theirs ; but see that you tread as lightly as. 
possible, and on as few as possible. What food, and clothes, 
and lodging, you honestly need, for your health and peace, 
you may righteously take. See that you take the plainest 
you can serve yourself with — that you waste or wear nothing 
\ainly ; — and that you employ no man in furnishing you 
with any useless luxury. That is the first lesson of Chris- 
tian — or human — economy." Time and Tide, Letter XXI., 
pp. 141 and 142. 

31. And there is hope for a nation. . . . "There is 



280 NOTES ON kings' teeasueies. 

a destiny now possible to us — the highest ever set before 
a nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegen- 
erate in race ; a race mingled of the best northern blood. 
We are not yet dissolute in temper, but still have the firm- 
ness to govern, and the grace to obey. We have been taught 
a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now finally 
betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich 
in an inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a 
thousand years of noble history, which it should be our 
daily thirst to increase with splendid avarice ; so that Eng- 
lishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour, should be the most 
offending souls alive." Lectures on Art, p. 28. 

32. We have despised literature. — "■ And alas ! this con- 
tinually increasing deadness to the pleasures of litera- 
ture leaves your minds, even in their most conscientious 
action, sensitive with agony to the sting of vanity, and at 
the mercy of the meanest temptation held out by the 
competition of the schools. Often do I receive letters 
from young men of sense and genius, lamenting the loss 
of their strength and waste of their time, but ending always 
with the same saying, "/ must take as high a class as I 
can, in order to please my father." And the fathers love 
the lads all the time, but yet, in every word they speak to 
them, prick the poison of the asp into their young blood, 
and sicken their eyes with blindness to all the true joys, 
the true aims, and true praises of science and literature ; 
neither do they themselves any more conceive what was 
once the oiily true faith of Englishmen ; that the only path 
of honour, is that of rectitude, and the only place of hon- 
our, the one that you arc tit for." Deucalion, vol. II. p. 43. 

33. The foot-note to ^ 33 is not in the first edition. 
nebula, a faint, misty appearance seen among the stars, 

which under a powerful telescope resolves itself into innu- 
merable stars ; as for instance the Milky Way. 

negation. [Lat. negare, to say no] denial, absence, — the 
opposite of affirmation. 

34. Art. — "National ignorance of decent art is always 
criminal, unless in earliest conditions of society ; and then 
it is brutal." Eagle's Nest, p. 16. 

*' Enormous sums are spent annually by this country in 



NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 231 

what is called patronage of art, but in what is for the most 
part merely buying what strikes our fancies True and 
Judicious patronage there is indeed ; many a work of art is 
bought by those who do not care for its possession, to assist 
the struggling artist, or relieve the unsuccessful one. But 
for the most jiart, I fear we are too much in the habit of 
buying simply what we like best, wholly irrespective of any 
good to be done, either to the artist or to the schools of 
the country. Now let us remember that every farthing we 
sjiend on objects of art has inflnence over men's minds and 
spirits, far more than over their bodies." Lectures on 
Architecture and Painting, p. 74. 

" I have been complaining of England that she despises 
the Arts ; but I might Avith still more appearance of Justice, 
complain that she does not rather dread them than despise. 
For what has been the source of the ruin of nations since 
the world began ? Has it been plague, or famine, earth- 
quake-shock or volcano-flame ? None of these ever prevailed 
against a great people, so as to make their name pass from 
the earth. In every period and place of national decline, you 
will find other causes than these at work to bring it about, 
namely, luxury, effeminacy, love of pleasure, -fineness in Art, 
ingenuity in enjoyment. What is the main lesson which, 
as far as we seek any m our classical reading, we gather for 
our youth from ancient history ? Surely this— that sim- 
plicity of life, of language, and of manners gives strength 
to a nation ; and that luxuriousness of life, subtlety of lan- 
guage, and smoothness of manners bring weakness and de- 
struction to a nation." Inaugural Address at the Cam- 
bridge School of Art, pp. 11, 12. 

Ludgate Apprentices. — Ludgate Hill is the part of London 
where St. Paul's Cathedral stands. The name is derived from 
the legendary King Lud, who is said to have built here 
one of the ancient gates (Lud's gate) of the city sixty-three 
years before Christ. The apprentices of the Loudon trades- 
men near Ludgate Hill used to keep up "the cry of 'Wiuit 
d'ye lack ? what d'ye lack ?' accompanied with appropriate 
recommendations of the articles in which they dealt." 
Scott's Fortunes of Nigel, Chap. I. 

Austrian guns. — '' In the bombardment of Venice in 1848, 



232 NOTES ON kings' treasuries. 

[by the Anstrians] hardly a single palace escaped without 
three or four balls through its roof ; three came into the 
Scuola di San Rocco, tearing their way through the pictures 
of Tintoret, of which the ragged fragments were still hang- 
ing from the ceiling in 1851 ; and the shells had reached to 
within a hundred yards of St. Mark's Church itself, at tlie 
time of the capitulation." Stones of Venice, Appendix 3. 

fine pictures. The first edition has Titiaus. The foot- 
note to ^ 34 was not given in the first edition. 

34, foot-note. Free Trade. — "The principle of Free 
Trade is, that French gentlemen should employ English 
workmen, for whatever tlie English can do better than the 
French ; and English gentlemen should employ French 
workmen, for whatever the French can do better than the 
English." Fors Clavigera, Letter I., p. 12. 

Protection. "All enmity, jealousy, opposition, and se- 
crecy are wholly, and in all circumstances, destructive in 
their nature — not productive ; and all kindness, fellowship, 
and communicativeness are invariably ]iroductive in their 
operation, — not destructive ; and the evil principles of op- 
position and exclusiveness are not rendered less fatal, but 
more fatal, by their acceptance among large masses of men." 
Political Economii of Art, p. 87. 

35. fall of Schaffhausen. — Ruskin's first sight, in his boy- 
hood, of the fall of the Rhine at Schaff'iausen marks an 
epoch in his life. Concerning it, he says, — "I went down 
that evening from the garden -terrace of Schaffhausen with 
my destiny fixed in all of it that was to be sacred and useful. 
To that terrace, and the shore of the Lake of Geneva, my 
heart and faith return to this day, in every impulse thac is 
yet nobly alive in them, and every thought that ,has in it 
help or peace." Fraeterita, Vol. L, p. 190. 

Clarens shore. — ^'^ The head of the Lake of Ueneva being 
precisely and accurately the otie spot of Europe whose char- 
acter, and influence on human mind, are special ; and 
unreplaceable if destroyed, no other spot resembling, or 
being in any wise comparable to it, in its peculiar way." 
Ifodern Painters, Part V., p. 374. 

" We English, had we loved Switzerland indeed, should 
have striven to elevate, but not to disturb, the simplicity of 



NOTES ON" kings' TREASURIES. 233 

her people, by teaching them the sacredness of their fields 
and waters, tlie honour of their pastoral and burgher life, 
and the fellowship in glory of the grey turreted walls ronncl 
their ancient cities, with their cottages in their fair groups 
by the forest and lake. Beautiful, indeed, upon the moun- 
tains, had been the feet of any who had spoken peace to 
their children ; — who had taught those princely peasants to 
remember their lineage, and their league with the rocks of 
the field ; that so they might keep their mountain waters 
pure, and their mountain paths peaceful, and their tradi- 
tions of doinestic life holy." Preface to First Edition of 
Sesame and Lilies, p. xli. 

cutaneous, affecting, or belonging to, the skin. 

Swiss vintagers of Zurich. — " I happened to pass the autumn 
of 18G3 in one of the great vine districts of Switzerland, 
under the slopes of the outlying branch of the Jura which 
limits the arable plain of the Canton Zurich, some fifteen 
miles nortli of Zurich itself. That city has always been a 
renowned stronghold of Swiss Protestantism, next in im- 
portance only to Geneva. ". . . I was somewhat anxious 
to see wliat species of thanksgiving or exultation would be 
expressed, at their vintage, by the peasantry in the neigh- 
borhood of this much enlightened evangelical and commer- 
cial society. It consisted in two ceremonies only. During 
the day, the servants of the farms where the grapes had 
been gathered, collected in knots about the vineyards, and 
slowly hred horse-pistols, from morning to evening. At 
night they got drunk, and staggered up and down the hill 
paths, uttering at short intervals yells and shrieks, differing 
only from the howling of wild animals by a certain intended 
and insolent discordance, only attainable by the malignity 
of debased human creatures. . . . The peculiar ghastli- 
ness of this Swiss mode of festivity is in its utter failure of 
joy ; the paralysis and helplessness of a vice in which there 
is neither pleasure, nor art. " Time and Tide, Letter IX., 
pp. 49, 50, 51. 

35. Foot-notes. — These foot-notes are not in the first edi- 
tion. The first edition, however, contained some extraneous 
matter relating to the slip of paper taken from the Daily 
Telegraph. 



234 NOTES ON kings' treasuries. 

36. " compassion is the Latin form of the Greek word 
sympathy— the English word for both is 'fellow-feelmg ; ' 
. . . the imaginative nnderstanding of the natures of 
others, and the ])ower of putting ourselves in their place, is 
the faculty on which the virtue depends.'' Fors Clavigera, 
Letter XXXIV., p. 166. 

The extract beginning, An inquiry was held, etc., is 
printed in red in the English editions. 

translated boots. — The foot-note to this is not in the first 
edition. 

syncope; a fainting fit ; occasioned usually by a sudden 
loss of blood or by starvation. 

" But if you put [a man] to base labour, if you bind his 
thoughts, if you blind his eyes, if yoti blunt his hopes, if 
you steal his joys, if you stunt his body, and blast his soul, 
and at last leave him not so much as to reap the poor fruit 
of his degradation, but gather that for yourself, and dismiss 
him to the grave, when you h:ive done with iiim, having, so 
far as in you lay, made the walls of that grave everlasting 
(though, indeed, I fancy the goodly bricks of some of our 
family vaults will hold closer in the resurrection day than 
the sod over the labourer's head), this you think no waste, 
and no sin." The Crown of Wild Olive, p. 36. 

" The nets which we use against the poor are just those 
worldly embarrassments which eitiier their ignorance or 
their improvidence are almost certain at some time or other 
to bring them into ; then, just at the time when we ought 
to hasten to help them and disentangle them, and teach 
them to manage better in future, we rush forward to j^illage 
them, and force all we can out of them in their adversity. 
For, to take one instance only, remember this is literally 
and simply what we do, whenever we buy, or try to buy, 
cheap goods — goods offered at a price which we know can- 
not be remunerative for the labour involved in them. 
Whenever we buy such goods, remember we are stealing 
somebody's labour. Don't let us mince the matter. I say, 
in plain Saxon, stealing — taking from him the proper 
reward of his work, and putting it into our own pocket. 
You know well enough that the thing could not have been 
offered you at that price, unless distress of some kind had 



NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 235 

forced the producer to part with it. You take advantage 
of this distress, and you force as much out of him as you 
can under the circumstances. The old barons of the middle 
ages used, in general, the thumbscrew to extort property ; 
we moderns use, in preference, hunger, or domestic afflic- 
tion : but the fact of extortion remains, precisely the same.'"' 
Tivo Paths, p. 185. Read the whole of " TheWorh of Iron " 
in the Two Paths. 

37. peculation, the stealing of public money. 

Satanella, Robert le Diablo and Faust are operas. 

"Dio." — Neither is singing songs about God, serving God. 
It is enjoying ourselves, if it's anything ; most probably it 
is nothing ; but if it's anything, it is serving ourselves, not 
God. And yet we are impudent enough to call our beg- 
gings and chauntings 'Divine Service': we say 'Divine 
service will be "performed"' (that's our word — the form 
of it gone through) 'at eleven o'clock.' Alas ! — unless 
we perform Divine service in every willing act of our life, 
we never perform it at all. The one Divine work — the 
one ordered saciifice — is to do justice ; and it is the last 
we are ever inclined to do." The Croimi of Wild Olive, 
p. 38. 

heretics. — A heretic is one who believes some doctrine 
contrary to the Christian religion. 

modern English religion. — " There is the danger of Artis- 
tical Pharisaism. Of all the forms of pride and vanity, 
there are none more subtle, so I believe none more sinful, 
than those which are manifested by the Pharisees of art. 
To be proud of birth, of place, of wnt. of bodily beauty is 
comparatively innocent. Just because such pride is more nat- 
ural, and more easily detected. But to be proud of our sancti- 
ties ; to pour contempt upon our fellows, because, forsooth, 
we like to look at Madonnas in bowers of roses, better than 
at plain pictures of plain things ; and to make this religious 
art of ours the expression of our own perpetual self-com- 
placency — congratulating ourselves, day by day, on our 
purities, proprieties, elevations, and inspirations, as above 
the reach of common mortals,— this I believe to be one of 
the wickedest and foolishest forms of human egotism." 
Modern Painters, Part IV., p. 60. 



236 NOTES ON kings' treasueies. 

Gothic. — "We shall find Gothic architecture has external 
forms, and internul elements. Its elements are certain men- 
tal tendencies of the builders, legibly expressed in it ; as 
fancifahiess, love of variety, love -of richness, and such 
others. Its external forms are pointed arches, vaulted 
roofs, etc. And unless both the elements and the forms 
are there, we have no right to call the style Grothic. It is 
not enough that it has the Form, if it have not also the 
power and life. It is not enough that it has the Power, if 
it has not also the form." Stones of Venice, vol. II., Chap. 
VI., p. 153. Read chapters VI. and VII. 

38. wish, the first edition has mind. 
soporific ; causing sleep, stupefying. 

The foot-note of ^ 38 is not m the first edition. 

39. metamorphosis is literally a change of shape, a transfor- 
mation. 

pantomime, a theatrical entertainment which is carried on 
without spoken words. 

40. we mean no harm. — "■ You may indeed, perhaps, 
think there is some excuse for many in the matter, just 
because the sin is so unconscious ; that the guilt is not so 
great when it is unapprehended, and that it is much more 
pardonable to slay heedlessly than purposefully. I believe 
no feeling can be more mistaken, and that in reality, and 
in the sight of heaven the callous indifference which pur- 
sues its own interests at any cost of life though it does not 
definitely adopt the purpose of sin, is a state of mind at 
once more heinous and more hopeless than the wildest aber- 
rations of ungoverned passion. There may be, in the last 
case, some elements of good and of redemption still mingled 
in the character; but, in the other, few or none. There may 
be hope for the man who has slain his enemy in anger ; hope 
even for the man who has betrayed his friends in fear ; but 
what hope for him who trades in unregarded blood, and builds 
his fortune in unrepented treason?" Tlie Ttoo Paths, p. 190. 

Chalmers, Dr. Thomas (1780-1847), was a great Scottish 
divine who did much to organize and establish the Free 
Church of Scotland. He was noted not only for his elo- 
quent preaching and writing, but also for the practical 
good that he accomplished in many ways. 



NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 237 

41. the last of our great painters. — J. M. W. Turner. See 
Turner. 

Kirkby Lonsdale, Yorkshire. " Another feeling trace- 
able in several of [Tnrner's] former works, is an acnte sense 
of the contrast between the careless interests and idle pleas- 
ures of daily life, and the state of those whose time for labor 
or knowledge, or delight is passed for ever. There is evi- 
dence of this feeling in the introduction of the boys at play 
in the cliurchvard of Kirkby Lonsdale."' Modern Painters, 
Part v., p.^ 315. 

incantation. [Lai. incantare, to chant a magic formula 
over one.] The act of using certain formulas of words, for 
the purpose of raising spirits. 

42. Scythian custom. — "When the master of a Scythian 
family died he was placed in his state chariot, and carried 
to visit every one of his blood relations. Each of them 
gave him and his attendants a splendid feast at which the 
dead man sat at the head of the table, and a piece of every- 
thing was put on his plate. In the morning he continued 
his circuit. This round of visits generally occupied nearly 
forty days, and he was never buried till the whole number 
had elapsed." Note by Ruskin on his poem Tlie Scythian 
Guest. 

Caina, in Dante's Inferno, is the place where Betrayers 
of kindred are immersed up to their necks ; so called from 
Cain. It is in the lowest circle of Hell. 

"The sins done in cold blood, without passion, or, more 
accurately, contrary to passion, far down helow the freezing 
point are put in the lowest hell ; the ninth circle, the hell 
of Traitors ; . . . and know, what people do not usually 
know of treachery, that it is not the fraud, but the coid- 
heartedness, which is chiefly dreadful in it. Therefore, 
this nether Hell is of ice, not fire ; and of ice that nothing 
can break." Fors Ciavigera, Letter XXIII., p. 210. 

Would you take the offer? . . . "Make, then, your 
choice boldly and consciously, for one way or other it mnst 
be made. On tlie dark and dangerous side are set, the 
pride which deligl:its in self-contemplation — the indolence 
which rests in unquestioned forms — -the ignorance that de- 
spises what is fairest among God's creatures, and the dul- 



238 NOTES ON kings' treasuries. 

iiess that denies what is marvellous in His working, 
And, on tlie other side, is open to your choice the life of the 
crowned spirit, . . . gaining every hour in strength, 
yet bowed down every honr into deeper humility ; — sure of 
being right in its aim, sure of being irresistible in its prog- 
ress ; happy in what it has secnrely done — happier in what, 
day by day, it mav as securely hope ; happiest at the close 
of life." The Two Paths, p. 50. 

Living. — ^^ to de qjp6vi/;ia rov Trrev/uaTo? ^co?) rial 
elpifvtf.'^ Romans viii. 6. "To be S2:)iritually-minded is 
life and peace." 

kings of the earth. — "Nov/, mind you this first, — that I 
speuk either about kings, or masses of men, with a fixed 
conviction that human nature is a noble and beautiful 
thing ; not a foul nor a base thing. All the sin of men I 
esteem as their disease, not their nature ; as a folly which 
may be prevented, not a necessity which must be accepted." 
'llie Ci'own of Wild Olive, p. 102. 

Visible governments are . . . Mnnera Pvlveris,'^. W^. 

43. Achilles, — See great Homeric story. 

base kings. — " Conclusively you will find that because you 
are king of a nation, it does not follow that you are to 
gather for yourself all the wealth of that nation ; neither, 
because you are king of a small part of the nation, and lord 
over the means of its maintenance — over field, or mill, or 
mine, are you to take all the produce of that piece of the 
foundation of natural existence for yourself." Tlie Crown 
of Wild Olive, p. 75. 

" 11 gran riiiuto," the great refusal. Dante's liiferno, III., 60. 

" There is indeed a course of beneficent glory open to us, 
such as never was yet offered to any poor group of mortal 
souls. But it must he — it is with us, now, ' Reign or die.' 
And if it shall be said of this country, ' P'ece per viltate, il 
gran rifiuto, [It made through cowardice the great refusal.] 
that refusal of the crown will be, of all yet recorded in his- 
tory, the sliamefullest and most untimely." Lectures on 
Art, p. 29. 

44. by, the force of it. — " The strength is in the men, 
and in their unity and virtue, not in their standing room : 
a little group of wise hearts is better than a wilderness full 



NOTES ON KINGS TREASURIES. 239 

of fools ; and only that nation gains true territory, which 
gains itself. Remember, no government is ultimately 
strong, but in iDroportion to its kindness and justice ; and 
that a nation does not sti'engthen, l)y merely multiplying 
and diffusing itself. It multiplies its strength only by 
increasing as one great family, in perfect lellowship"^ and 
brotherhood." [Abridged] The Crown of Wild Olive, 
p. 109. 

cantel, [old French] a corner, a piece. 

45. In this paragraph, which is the climax of the whole 
lecture, Ruskin contrasts worthy ambitions with unworthy 
ones. Men striye, he says, to live a life merely of selfish 
pleasure, (Moth-kings with " broidered robe, only to be 
rent'') ; to contend for selfish power and glory, (Rust-kings 
with "helm and sword, only to be dimmed'') ; to aim only 
for the acquisition of wealth (Robber-kings with "jewel ani 
gold, only to be scattered "). The influence of all these is 
negative and destructive, theirs is the power of those *'who 
undo and consume." He would establish a Fourth order, — 
men Avhose influence is positive and constructive, whose 
power is "to do and teach." In them are combined the 
virtues of conduct, toil, and thought, in a word — Wisdom. 
They are to have power, but it is to be spent for the guid- 
ance of others and not for their own advancement. 

those who undo. — '■ You talk of the scythe of Time, and 
the tooth of Time : I tell you. Time is scytheless and tooth- 
less ; it is we who gnaw like the worm — we who smite like 
the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish — ourselves who 
consume : we are the mildew, and the flame, and the soul of 
man is to its own work as the moth, that frets when it 
cannot fly, and as the hidden flame that blasts where it 
cannot illumine." Pol. Econ. of Art, p. 57. 

Fourth kind of treasure. — The wisdom that comes from 
right conduct, riglit industry, and right thinking. 

Suppose there should . . . valued "with pure gold. Cf . 
Job xviii. lG-19. 

Athena. — " This great goddess, the Xeith of the Egyp- 
tians, the Athena, or Athenaia of the Greeks, and with 
broken powder, half'usurped by Mars, the Minerva of the 
Latins" is the goddess of " wisdom of conduct and of the 



240 NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 

heart, as opposed to the wisdom of the imagination and the 
brain ; moral, as distinct from intellectual, inspired as dis- 
tinct from illuminated." Queen of the Air, p. 13. 

Vulcanian force. — " Over earthly fire, the assistant of 
human labour, is set Hephaetus [Vulcan], lord of all labour 
in which is the tlush and sweat of the brow." Queen of 
the Air, p. 12. 

sun's red heart. — " Over heavenly fire, the source of day, is 
set Apollo, the spirit of all kindling, purifying, and illumi- 
nating wisdom." Queen of the Air, p. 12. 

Delphian cliffs symbolize a prophetic and cosmic power ; 
for, remember that Apollo was worshipped at the temple of 
Delphi, and that there the priestess gave answers to the 
inquiries of those who came from all parts to seek wisdom 
of AjDollo, then you will see that the meaning of " a gold 
to be mined in the sun's red heart, where he sets over the 
Delphian clifPs" is tliat this wisdom is to be a guiding 
power that " illuminates as the sun, with a constant fire 
whatever in humanity is skilful and wise." 

deep-pictured tissue woven by Athena's shuttle ; for 
" Athena presides over industry . . . typically over 
woman's industry that brings comfort with pleasantness." 

impenetrable armour forged by Vulcan. Of. ''For wis- 
dom is a defence." Ece. vii. 12. 

potable, that which can be drunk. Cf. "The words of a 
man's mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wis- 
dom as a flowing brook." Prov. xviii. 4. 

the three great angels. — " And thus, as Hephaetus [Toil] is 
lord of the fire of the hand, and Apollo [Thought] of the 
fire of. the brain, so Athena [Conduct] of the tire of the 
heart" — Queen of the Air, p. Gl. 

by the path . . . eye has not seen. Cf. Job xxviii. 7. 

For fuller knowledge of Ruskin's mythological symbolism, 
read Queen of the Air. 

Wisdom. — " But if you seek wisdom only that you may 
get money, believe me, you are exactly on the foolishest of 
all fools' errands. "She is more precious than rubies" — 
but do you think that is only because she will help you to 
bui/ rubies ? " All the things thou canst desire are not to be 
compared to her." Do you think that is only because she is 



NOTES ON kings' TREASURIES. 2il 

offered to you as a blessing in herself 2 She is tlie reward of 
kindness, of modesty, of industry. She is the Prize of 
Prizes — aud alike in poverty or in riches — the strength of 
your Life now, the earnest of whatever life is to come. A 
Joy Forever, p. 140. 

47. a single sentence out of the only book. TJnto TJiis 
Last ; note, p. 124. 

48. panic, a sudden fright, originally an adjective, as a 
panic fear, and still used as such ; because Pan was said to 
have assisted the Athenians at the battle of Marathon by 
striking terror into the Persians. 

"■ The fear which France and England have of each other 
costs each nation about fifteen millions sterling annually, 
besides various paralyses of commerce ; that sum being 
spent in the manufacture of means of destruction instead of 
means of production. There is no more reason in the nature 
of things that France and England should be hostile to each 
other than that England or Scotland should be, or Lanca- 
shire and Yorkshire. Munera Fulveris, Appendix I., p. 157. 

49. corn laws. — From the beginning of this century, the 
import duties in England on corn and other bread-stuffs 
were so heavy and occasioned such great distress among the 
jjoorer classes of the English people that there was great 
agitation of the subject, until they were repealed in the 
ministry of Sir Eobert Peel. Although this re])eal of the 
corn duties was carried in 1846, yet it did not come into 
complete operation until 1849. 

"The corn-laws were rightly repealed; not, however, 
because they directly oppressed the poor, but because they 
indirectly oppressed them in causing a large quantity of 
tlieir labour to be consumed unproductively.' Unto this 
Last, ]). 84. 

The first edition has this final sentence. — Friends, the 
treasuries of true kings are the streets of their cities ; and 
tlie gold they gather, ivhich for others is as the mire of 
the streets, changes itself, for the?n and their people, into 
a crystalline pavement for evermore. 
11 



Il 



1 



3 



QUEENS' GARDENS. 



Instead of the quotation from Isaiah given here, the first 
edition has, oo^ uplvov ev fxtffcp, outgo? ?} nXrjffiov /.wu 
Canticles ii., 2. 

51. kingly. "Now this [a sense of the nobleness and vir- 
tue of human nature] being the true power of our inherent 
humanity, and seeing that all the aim of education should 
be to develop this ; — and seeing also what magnificent self- 
sacrifice the higher classes of men are capable of, for any 
cause that they understand or feel, — it is Avholly inconceiv- 
able to me how well-educated princes, who ought to bo of 
all gentlemen the gentlest, and of all nobles the most gen- 
erous, and whose titles of royalty mean only their function 
of doing every man right— how these, I say, tliroughont 
history, should so rarely pronounce themselves on the side 
of the poor, and of justice, but continually maintain them- 
selves and their own interests by oppression of the poor, 
and by wresting of justice ; and how this should be accepted 
as so natural, that the word loyalty, which means faithful- 
ness to law, is used as if it were only the duty of a j)eople 
to be loyal to their king, and not the duty of a king to be 
infinitely more loyal to his people." Crotvn of Wild Olive, 
pp. 104 and 105. 

insignia, badges ; neuter plural of the Lat. adjective 
insignis, distinguished by some mark. 

"Likeness" . . . In Milton's description of Death, 
one of the gate-keepers of hell, these words occur : — 
" What seem'd his head 
The likeness of a kingly crown had on," 

Paradise Lost, Bk. II. 

53. true queenly power. ''It is taught with all the 
faculty I am possessed of, in 'Sesame and Lilies,' that in a 
state of society in which men and women are as good as 



244 NOTES ON queens' GAEDENS. 

they can be, (under mortal limitation,) the women will be 
the guiding and purifying power. In savage and embryo 
countries, they are openly oppressed, as animals of burden ; 
in corrupted and fallen conntries, more secretly and terri- 
bly." — I'ors Clavigern, Letter XC, p. 102. 

56. Shakespeare's heroes and heroines. Henry the Fifth, 
Othello, Coriolanus, and Hamlet are heroes of plays named 
from them. Caesar is m Julins Ccemr ; Antony, Antony 
and Cleopatra ; Romeo, Romeo and Juliet ; the Merchant of 
Venice is x\ntonio in tne play of 21ie 3fercJtant of Venice ; 
Orlando aiid Rosalind are hero and heroine oi As You. Like 
It; Cordelia, King Lear; Desdemona, Ofliello ; Isabella, 
Measure for Measur^e ; Hermione, Winter's Tale; Imogen, 
Cymheline ; Q,ueen Katharine, Llenry VIIL; Perdita, Win- 
ter'' s Tale ; Sylvia, Two (.ientlemen of Verona ; Viola, 
Tiuelfth Night ; Rosalind, As You Like It ; Helena, Mid- 
summer Nighfs Dream ; Virgilia, Coriolanns. 

*'It maybe well quickly to mark for you the levels of 
loving temper in Shakespeare's maids and wives, from the 
greatest to the least. 

Isabel [Isabella]. All earthly love, and the possibilities 
of it, held in absolute subjection to the laws of God, and 
the judgments of His will. She is Shakespeare's only 
'Saints.' Queen Katherine, whom you might next think 
of, is only an ordinary woman of trained religious temper. 
See Katherine. 

Cordelia. The earthly love consisting in difPnsed com- 
passion of the universal spirit ; not in any conquering per- 
sonally fixed feeling. 

Portia. [See unlessoned girl.] The maidenly passion now 
becoming great, and chiefly divine in its humility, is still 
held absolutely subordinate to duty. She is highest in 
intellect of all Shakespeare's women, and this is the root of 
her modesty ; her "unlessoned girl " is like Newton's simile 
of the child on the seashore. Her j^erfect wit and stern 
judgment are never disturbed for an instant by her. happi- 
ness : and the final key to her character is given in hev 
silent and slow return from Venice, where she stops at every 
wayside shrine to pray. 

Hermione. Fortitude and Justice personified, with un- 



NOTES ON queens' gaedens. 245 

wearying affection. She is Penelope, tried by her husband's 
fault as well as error. 

Virgilia. Perfect type of wife and mother, but without 
definiteness of character, nor quite strength of intellect 
enough entirely to hold her husband's heart. Else, she 
had saved him : he would have left Rome in his wrath — 
but not her. Therefore it is his mother [Volumnia] only 
who bends him : but she cannot save. 

Imogen. The ideal of grace and gentleness ; but weak ; 
enduring too mildly and forgiving too easily. 

Desdemona, Ophelia [see ^ 58], Eosalind. They are under 
different conditions from all the rest, in having entirely 
heroic and faultless persons to love I can't class them, 
therefore, — fate is too strong, and leaves them no free will. 

Perdita. Rather a mythic vision of maiden beauty than 
a mere girl. 

Viola and Juliet. Love the ruling power in the entire 
character : wholly virginal and pure, but quite earthly, and 
recognizing no other life than his own. Viola is, however, 
far the nobler. Juliet will die unless Romeo loves her: 
' If he be wed, the grave is like to be my wedding bed ;' but 
Viola is ready to die for the happiness of the man who does 
not love her ; faithfully doing his messages to her rival, 
whom she examines strictly for his sake. It is not in 
envy that she says, ' Excellently done, — if God did all ' " 
[abridged]. Proserpina, pp. 39, 41. 

57. one true daughter, Cordelia. 

one weakness, jealousy. 

Oh, murderous . . . Othello, Act v., sc. ii. 

adamantine, incapable of being destroyed, from the Lat., 
adamas, a diamond. 

Julia is in Tioo Getitlemen of Verona; Hero and Beatrice, 
3lHrh Ado about Nothing. 

unlessoned girl. Portia, in the Merchant of Venice says of 
herself, — 

" You see me. Lord Bassanio, where I stand. 
Such as I am . . . 

. . an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd ; 
Happy in this she is not yet so old 
But she may learn." Act iii., sc. ii. 



246 NOTES ON queens' gaedens, 

bringing courage . . . accuracy of thought. The first 
edition has, to save merely hy her presence, and defeat the 
worst intensities of crime by her smile. 

58. Ophelia, Hamlet; Lady Macbeth, Macieth ; Eegan 
and Goneril, the untilial daughters of King Lear. 

59. Walter Scott. — "But what good Scott has in him 
to do, I find no words full enough to tell. His ideal of 
honour in men and women is inbred, indisputable ; fresh 
as the air of his mountains ; firm as their rocks. His con- 
ception of purity in woman is even higher than Dante's ; his 
reverence for the filial relation, as deep as Virgil's ; his sym- 
pathy universal ; — there is no rank or condition of men 
of which he has not shown the loveliest aspects ; his code 
of moral principles is entirely defined, yet taught with a 
reserved subtlety like Nature's own, so that none but the 
most earnest readers perceive the intention : and his opin- 
ions on all practical subjects are final ; the consummate 
decisions of accurate and inevitable common sense, tem- 
pered by the most graceful kindness." Fors Clavigera, Let- 
ter XXXI., PI). 107 and 108. Eead the whole of Letters 
XXXL and XXXIV. 

Dandie Dinmont is in Guy Maiitieriny ; Rob Roy, Rob Roy; 
Claverhouse, Old Mortality; Redgauntlet, Redganntlet; 
Edward Glendinning, llie Monastery ; Colonel Gardiner, and 
Colonel Talbot, Waverly; Colonel Mannering, Guy Mannering. 

young men. — The adjective youny was added in the third 
edition. 

Ellen Douglas is in the poem. Lady of the Lahe ; Flora 
Mac Ivor, Waverly ; Rose Bradwardine, Waverly ; Catherine 
Seyton, The Abbot; Diana Vernon, Rob Roy ; Lilias Red- 
gauntlet, Redgauntlet ; Alice Bridgenorth, Fever il of the 
Fealc ; Alice Lee, Woodstocl: ; Jeanie Deans, Heart of Mid 
Lothian. 

60. Dante's great poem. — Divina Com media ; see Dante, 
dead lady. — Beatrice Porfinari ; see Dante. 

knight of Pisa. — Pannuccio dal Bagno, 1250 (date given 
by Rossetti). The words early fourteenth are not found in 
the first edition of Sesame and Lilies, but are inserted here, 
probably to cover L340, which is the date assigned to Pan- 
nuccio in the Cenni BiograpMci. 



NOTES 'ON queens' GARDENS. 247 

Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, (1828-1882). The stanzas begin- 
ning " For lo ! thy Imv . . .*' are from a canzone by 
Pannnccio dal Bagno entitled ''Of his Change through 
Love," which may be found in Rossetti's Farli/ Italian Poets. 

61. His spiritual subjection. — " But one fact, the most vital 
of all, they [the Greeks] could not in its fulness perceive 
namely that the intensity of other perceptions of beauty is 
exactly commensurate with the imaginative purity of the 
passion of love and the singleness of its devotion. They 
were not fully conscious of, and could not therefore either 
mythically or philosophically express, the deep relation 
within themselves between their power of perceiving beauty 
and the honour of domestic affection which found their 
sternest themes of tragedy in the infringement of its law ; — 
which made the rape of Helen the chief subject of their 
epic poetry, and which fastened their clearest symbolism of 
resurrection on the story of Alcestis." Lectures on A7't, 
p. 91. 

Andromache, one of the sweetest and noblest women in 
the Iliad, was the wife of Hector and the mother of Asty- 
anax. The account that Homer gives us of her tenderness 
and love for her husband and son is very touching. At the 
downfall of Troy, she was captured by Pyrrhus, and subse- 
quently became the wife of Helen us. King of Epirus. — See 
Great Homeric Story. 

Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, was endowed with the 
gift of prophecy by the god Apollo, who, at the same time, 
rendered t!ie gift useless by decreeing that no one should be- 
lieve her. She continually foretold the capture of Troy, but 
could not save the city, because of the fatality attending her 
prophecies. At the downfall of Troy, she became the captive 
of Agamemnon, and was killed by his wife Clytemnestra. 

Nausicaa. — Homer, in the sixth and seventh books of the 
Odyssey, gives a pretty description of the daughter of Alci- 
nous, Nausicaa, who goes to the river to wash her clothes, 
and while there meets the shi]nvrecked Ulysses. Her greet- 
ing and care of Ulysses, and the way in which she conducts 
him back to her father's palace are delightfully girlish and 
simple. 

Penelope was the wife of Ulysses, king of Ithaca. During 



248 NOTES ON queens' gardens. 

his absence at the siege of Troy, she was sought in marriage 
by many suitors, whom she put oif from day to day believ- 
ing always that her hnsband would come back to her. After 
watching and waiting for twenty years she was rewarded by 
the return of Ulysses. 

Antigone was a noble maiden distinguished by her heroic 
attachment to her fatlier and brothers, which showed itself 
in her patient care and guidance of her father QEdipus 
in his blindness and exile, and in her fearless attempts to 
bury her brothers' bodies, in defiance of the tyrant Creon's 
orders. For this defiance, she was imprisoned by Creon 
in a subterranean cave, where she killed herself. 

Iphigenia was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytem- 
nestra. The Grecian fleet which sailed for Troy having 
been detained by unpropitions winds, Agamemnon was sum- 
moned by the other chiefs to sacrifice his daughter to pro- 
pitiate the gods. He was obliged to deliver her up, but 
Diana intervened to save her, carried her away and made 
her a priestess in the temple at Taurus. 

Alcestis. — The death of Admetus, the husband of Alcestis, 
had been decreed by the gods, unless he could find some one 
to die in his stead. His father and mother having refused 
to take his place, Alcestis gladly offered herself, sickened 
and died. She was brought back to life by Hercules; and 
the Greeks ''fastened their clearest symbolism of resurrec- 
tion on the story of Alcestis.'" 

62. Chaucer '(1328 or 40-1400).—"! think the most 
perfect type of a true English mind in its best possible tem- 
per, is that of Chaucer; and you will find that, while it is 
for the most part full of thoughts of beauty, pure and wild 
like that of an April morning, there are even, in the midst 
of this, sometimes momentarily jesting passages which stoop 
to play with evil." Lectures on Art, p. 14. 

Spenser (155'^-1599). — " No time devoted to profane liter- 
ature will be better rewarded than that spent earnestly on 
Spenser." Stones of Venice, Vol. II., p. 328. 

Una is in the first book of Spenser's great allegory, The 
Faerie Queen. She typifies Truth, and it is through lier 
imrity and steadfastness that her lover, the Red Cross 
Knight, is helped to overcome his foes. 



NOTES ON queens' GARDENS. 249 

Britomart. — The adventures of Britomartis, who typifies 
Chastity,, ai'e related in the third book of the Faerie QueeiL 
''The peculiar superiority of his [Spenser's] system is in its 
exquisite setting forth of Chastity under the figure of Brit- 
omart ; not monkish chastity, but that of the jiurest 
Love." Stones of Venice, Vol' II., p. 3^7. 

one of whose princesses. — Pharaoh's daughter. Exodus 
ii. 10. 

Lawgiver of all the earth. — Moses. 

Spirit ofWisdom. — " Xeith is the Egyptian spirit of divine 
wisdom and tlie Athena of the Greeks." Ethics of the Dust, 
Note III. See Athena. 

Athena of the olive helm and cloudy shield. — The olive was 
sacred to Athena ; because by producing it, she was judged 
by the gods to have given the gift most useful to moi'tals. 
''From perfect knowledge, given by the full-revealed Athe- 
na, [sprang] strength and peace, in sign of which she is 
crowned with the olive spray, and bears the resistless spear." 
Croivn of Wild Olive, p. 63. 

Athena was queen of "the air, which includes all cloud 
and rain, and dew, and darkness, and peace, and wrath of 
heaven," and as such, was represented by the Greeks with 
a shield "the colour of heavy thunder-cloud fringed with 
lightning." The Queen of the Air, pp. 34 and 96. 

"It is by the helmet and the shield, oftener tlian by the 
shuttle that she is distinguished from other deities." Croiun 
of Wild Olive, p. 58. 

64. ^schylus (525 b.c -456 B.C.) was the first and the 
grandest of tlie Greek tragedians. 

Homer (Before 800 B.C.). — "And without doubt, in his 
influence over future mankind, Homer is eminently the 
Greek of Greeks, ... he is the great type and the 
more notable one because of his influence on Virgil, and, 
through him, on Dante, and all the after ages." Modern 
Painters, Part IV., p. 88. 

65. The lines beginning, "Ah, wasteful woman," are 
found in the earlier editions of Patmore's The Arigel in the 
House, Part VII. of The Betrothal. 

Patmore, Coventry Kearsey Dighton, (1823- ). "I 
am bound, for my own part, to express my obligation to 

11* 



250 NOTES ON queens' GARDENS. 

Mr. Patmore, as one of my severest models and tutors in 
use of English, and my respect for him as one of the truest 
and tenderest thinkers who have ever illustrated the most 
important, because commonest, states of noble human life." 
Arrotvs of the Gliace. Vol. 11., p. 170. 

The footnote given here is not in the first edition of 
Sesame and Lilies. 

68. Her great function is Praise. — 'MVe yet, thank 
Heaven, are not ashamed to acknowledge the power of 
love ; but we confusedly and doubtfully allege that of hon- 
our ; and though we cannot but instinctively triumph still, 
over a won boat-race, I suppose the best of us would shrink 
somewhat from declaring that the love of praise was to be 
one of the chief motives of their future lives. But I believe 
you will find it, if you think, not only one of the chief, but 
absolutely the chief, motive of human action ; nay, that love 
itself is, in its highest state, the rendering of an exquisite 
praise to body and soul ; and our English tongue is very 
sacred in this ; for its Saxon word, love, is connected, 
through the old French verb, locr, (whence louange) with the 
Latin ' laus ' [praise] not ' amor.' And yon may sum the duty 
of your life in the giving of praise worthily, and being your- 
selves worthy of it."" the Eagle's Nest, pp. 180-181. ' 

vestal temple, a home of purity. — Among the Eomans, ves- 
tal temples were temples to the goddess of purity, Vesta, who 
was worshipped by a fire kept i)erpetually burning by the 
vestals, or virgin priestesses. She Vv^as the embodiment of 
the idea that the state is one great family, and, in this con- 
nection, becomes one of the Penates, or Household Gods. 

Household Gods.— The Penates, who were the great deities 
such as Jupiter, Juno, etc., and the Lares and Manes, who 
were the deified family ancestors, were all supposed to dwell 
in the innermost parts of a house and to watch over the 
welfare and ])rosperity of the family. 

Pharos, a ligiithouse ; so called from the island Pharos, 
off the coast of Egypt, on which Ptolemy L built a light- 
house that was considered one of the seven wonders of the 
world. 

69. "La donna 6 mobile." — " The lady is variable." 
Q,ual pium'al vento, " like a feather in the wind." 



NOTES ON queens' GARDENS. 251 

"Variable as . . . aspen made." — Scott : Marmion, 
Canto VI. 

70. physical training and exercise. — " No physical error 
can be more profound, jio moral error more dangerous, than 
that involved in the monkish doctrine of the opposition of 
body to soul. No soul can be perfect in an imperfect body ; 
no body perfect without perfect soul. Every right action 
and true thought sets the seal of its beauty on person and 
face ; every wrong action and foul thought its seal of distor- 
tion ; and the various aspects of humanity might be read 
as plainly as a printed history, were it not that the impres- 
sions are so complex that it must always in some cases (and, 
in the present state of our knowledge, in all cases) be impos- 
sible to decipher them completely. Nevertheless, the face 
of a consistently Just, and of a consistently unjust person, 
may always be rightly distinguished at a glance.'' Munera 
Pulveris, p. 4. 

without a corresponding freedom of heart. — '^ For there is 
not any virtue the exercise of which, even momentarily, will 
not impress a new fairness upon the features, neither on 
them only, but on the whole body ; both the intelligence 
and the moral faculties have operation, for even all the 
movements and gestures, however slight, are different in 
their modes according to the mind that governs them, and 
on the gentleness and decision of just feeling there follows 
a grace of action, and through continuance of this a grace of 
form, which by no discipline maybe taught or attained." 
Modern Painters, Part III., p. 115, 

that poet— William Wordsworth (1770-1850), "the keen- 
est-eyed of all modern poets for what is deep and essential 
in nature.'' Modern Painters, Part 11. , p. 177, 

"Three years . . ." — From Wordsworth's poem enti- 
tled " Three Years She Grew."' 

"Observe it is . . ." — This footnote is not found in the 
first edition. 

"Vital feelings of delight." — [The] first perfection, there- 
fore, relating to vital beauty, is the kindness and unsel- 
fish fulness of heart, which receives the utmost amount of 
pleasure from the happiness of all things." Modern Paint- 
ers, Part III., p. 90. 



252 NOTES ON queens' gardens. 

71. " A countenance . . ." — From Wordsworth's poem 

entitled, " Sl/e UTr-.*;' a Fhantom of Delight.^' 

72. not as knowledge. — " And the entire object of trne 
education is to make people not merely do the right things, 
but enjoy the right things — not merely industrious, but to 
love industry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — 
not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, but 
to hunger and thirst after Justice." Crown of Wild Olive, 
p. 50. 

equities. '■'Equity is the giving, or desiring to give, to 
each man his due, according to reason and the law of God 
to man ; distinguished from justice in requiring a more 
perfect standard than any positive enactment or custom." 

suffering v/hich is not the less real ..." If, suddenly 
in the midst of the enjoyments of the palate and lightnesses 
of heart of a London dinner-party, the walls of the cham- 
ber were parted, and through their gap, the nearest human 
brings who were famishing, and in misery, Avere borne into 
the midst of the company — feasting and fancy-free — if, pale 
with sickness, horrible in destitution, broken by despair, body 
by body, they wore laid upon the soft carpet, one beside the 
chair of every guest, would only the crumbs of the dainties 
be cast to them — would only a passing glance, a passing 
thought be vouchsafed to them ? Yet the actual facts, the 
real relation of each Dives and Lazarus, are not altered by 
the interventi(m of the house wall between the table and 
the sick-bed — by the few feet of ground (how few !) which 
are indeed all that separate the merriment from the misery." 
The Opening of tlie (rystal Palace, p. 12. 

73. they must. The first edition has, — let them. Notice 
the dilfei'ence in strength. 

theology, see theology. 

74. girl's education. — " You are to note this, that the end 
of all right education for a woman is to make her love her 
home better than any other place ; that she should as seldom 
leave it as a queen her queendom ; nor ever feel entirely 
at rest but witliin its threshold." Fovs Clavigera, Letter 
XXXIII. , p. 158 ; see summarily. 

only so far as . . . — " For all the arts of mankind 
and womankind are only rightly learned, or practised, 



NOTES ON queens' GARDENS. 253 

when they 'ire so with the definite purpose of pleasing or 
teaching others." Fors Oktvigera, Letter LIX., p. 191. 

75. infirm attempt at compassing. The lirst edition has, 
— a feeble smattering. 

her range of literature. — "And I doubt not that it is truly 
possible, by first insisting on a girl's really knowing how to 
read, and then by allowing her very few books, and those 
absolutely wholesome, — and not amusing ! — to give her a 
healthy appetite for reading." Fors Clavigera, Letter 
XXXIIL, p. 179. 

" Yon must read, for the nourishment of your mind, pre- 
cisely under the moral laws vv^hieh regulate your eating for 
the nourislnnent of the body. That is to say, you must not 
eat for the pleasure of eating, nor read, for the pleasure of 
reading. But, if you manage yourself rightly, you will 
intensely enjoy your dinner, and your book. If you have 
any sense, you can easily follow out this analogy ; I have 
not time at present to do it for you ; only be sure it holds, 
to the minutest particular, with the difference only, that 
the vices and virtues of reading are more harmful on the 
one side, and higher on the other, as the soul is more pre- 
cious than the body. Gluttonous reading is a worse vice 
than gluttonous eating ; filtliy and foul reading, a much 
more loathsome habit tlum filthy eating. Epicurism in 
books is much more difficult of attainment than epicurism 
in meat, but plain and virtuous feeding the most entirely 
pleasurable.'" Fors Clavigera, Letter LXL, p. 16. 

77. Thackeray (1811-1863) was one of the great English 
novelists. Ruskin's characterization is peculiarly true of 
Thackeray, for his portrayal of character appears either 
cynical or impartially critical according to the sympathies 
of the reader. 

78. their freedom ... of good. The first edition 
has, — ivliat is out of thera, hut for loliat is in them. 

Her household motions . . . — From Wordsworth's 
Slw Was a Phantom of Delight. 

79. music. — ' I would first insist on the necessity of a 
sound system in elementary music. Musicians, like painters, 
are almost virulently determined in their efforts to abolish 
the laws of sincerity and purity ; and to invent, each for his 



25-t NOTES ON queens' gaedens. 

own glory, new modes of dissolute and lascivious sound. 
No greater benefit could be conferred on the upper as well 
as the lower classes of society than the arrangement of a 
grammar of simple and pui'e music, of which the code 
should be alike taught in every school in the land/' Fors 
Clavigera, Lettei- X'CV., p. 169. 

80. truth. — " This teaching of truth as a habit will be 
the chief work the master has to do ; and it will enter into 
all parts of education. First, you must accustom the chil- 
dren to close accuracy of statement ; this both as a principle 
of honour, and as an acconiY)lishment of language, making 
them try always who shall speak truest, both as regards the 
fact be has to relate or express (not concealing or exagger- 
ating), and as regards the precision of the words he ex- 
presses it in, thus making truth (which, indeed, it is) the 
test of perfect language, and giving the intensity of a moral 
purpose to the study and art of words ; then carrying this 
accuracy into all habits of thought and observation also, so as 
always to think of things as they truly are, and to see them 
as they truly are, as far as in us rests. And it does rest 
much in our power, for all false thoughts and seeings come 
mainly of our thinking of what we have no business with, 
and looking for things we want to see, instead of things that 
ought to be seen." Time and Tide, Letter XVI., p. 107 : 
" Speaking truth is like writing fair, and comes only by 
practice ; it is less a matter of will than of habit, and I 
doubt if any occasion can be trivial which permits the 
practice and formation of such a habit To speak and act 
truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and 
perhaps as meritorious, as to speak it under intimidation or 
penalty ; and it is a strange thought how many men there 
are, as I trust, who would liold to it at a cost of fortune or 
life, for one who would hold to it at the cost of a little daily 
trouble." Seven Lamps of Architecture, p. 29. 

81. not only noble teachings, but noble teachers. "Next 
to bodily accomplishments, the two great mental graces 
should be taught, Reverence and Compassion : not that 
these are in a literal sense to be "taught," for they are 
innate in every well-born human creature, but they have to 
be developed, exactly as the strength of the body must be, 



NOTES ON queens' GARDENS. 256 

by deliberate and constant exercise. I never iinderstood 
why Goethe (in the plan of education in Wilhelm Meister) 
says that reverence is not innate, but must be taught from 
without ; it seems to me so fixedly a function of the human 
spirit, that if men can get nothing else to reverence they 
will worship a fool, or a stone, or a vegetable. But to teach 
reverence rightly is to attach it to the right persons and 
things ; first, by setting over your youth masters whom they 
cannot but love and respect ; next by gathering for them, out 
of past history, whatever has been most worthy, in human 
deeds and human passion ; and leading them continually to 
dwell upon sucli instances, making this the principal element 
of emotional excitement to them ; and, lastly, by letting 
them justly feel, as far as may be, the smallness of their own 
powers and knowlcd2:e, as compared with the attainments of 
others." Time andTTide, Letter XVI., pp. 104 and 10.5. 

The Dean is the head of Christ Church, the largest college 
of the University of Oxford ; while the head of Trinity, the 
largest college of the University of Cambridge, is known as 
the Master. 

82. Joan of Arc, Maid of Orleans, was a peasant-girl of 
Lorraine wlio believed herself to be selected by Grod to save 
the fortunes of France. Inspired by her enthusiasm, the 
French armies routed the English, raised the siege of Or- 
leans and crowned Charles VII. at Rheims. Afterwards 
Joan was captured by the English, accused and convicted 
of witchcraft, and burned at Rouen, in 1431. 

83. Cf. " The idea of self-denial for the sake of posterity, 
of practising present economy for the sake of debtors yet 
unborn, of planting forests that our descendants may live 
under their shade, or of raising cities for future nations to 
inhabit, never, I suppose, efficiently takes place among pub- 
licly recognized motives of exertion. Yet these are not the 
less our duties ; nor is our part fitly sustained upon the 
earth, unless the range of our intended and deliberate use- 
fulness include not only the companions, but the successors, 
of our pilgrimage. God has lent us the earth for our life ; 
it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to 
come after us, and whose names are already written in the 
book of creation, as to us ; and we have no right, by any- 



256 NOTES ON queens' gardens. 

thing that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary 
penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was in our 
power to bequeath."' Seven Lamps of Architecture, p. 17;^. 
"sharp arrows . . . of juniper." — Psal. cxx. 4. 

84. Parnassus, a mountain of Greece, and Snowdon, a 
mountain of Wales, are both famed for their beauty. Par- 
nassus was dedicated to Bacchus, Apollo, and the Muses ; 
for the Greeks were a beauty- worshipping people and held 
sacred tlie natural objects that they most admired. 

Holyhead island, taken together vvnth the island of An- 
glesea, holds somewhat the same relative geographical posi- 
tion to the northern coast of Wales that the island of iEgina 
does to the southwestern coast of Attica. From the ruins 
of the ancient Temple of Minerva in Mgh\& have been taken 
a valuaide series of statues. 

85. You cannot baptize them . . . — "From the low- 
est to the highest class, every child born in this island should 
be required by law to receive these general elements of hu- 
man discijjline, and to be baptized — not with a drop of water 
on its forehead — but in the cloud and sea of heavenly wis- 
dom and of earthly power . . . Therefore, first teach — 
as I said in the preface to Unto this Last — 'The Laws of 
Health, and exercises enjoined by them' ; and to this end 
your schools must be in fresh country, and amidst fresh 
air, and have great extents of land attached to them in per- 
manent estates.'" Time and Tide, Letter XVL, pp. 103 
and 104. 

Pagan [Lat. jjaganus, a villager] was the name given to 
idolaters in the early Christian church, because the villagers, 
being most remote from the centres of instruction, remained 
for a long time unconverted." Most pagan peoples deified 
natural objects. 

You cannot lead your children . . . " Now, you feel, 
as I say this to you — I know you feci — as if I were trying to 
take away the honour of your churches. Not to ; I am 
trying to prove to you the honour of your houses and your 
hills ; I am trying to show you — not that the Church is not 
sacred — but that the whole Earth is. 1 would have you 
feel, what careless, what constant, what infectious sin there 
is in all modes of thought, whereby, in calling your churches 



NOTES ON QUEllNS' GAEDENS. 257 

only ' holy,' yon call your hearths and homes profane ; and 
have separated yourselves from the lieathen by casting all 
yonr household gods to the ground, instead of recognizing, 
in the place of tJbeir many and feeble Lares, the presence of 
your One and Mighty Loi'd and Lar." C'nnvn of Wild 
Olive, p. 59, 

Unknown God. — Cf. St. Paul's words spoken on Mars' hill. 
Acts xvii. 'Z'Z-ol. 

88. arrogated ; to aiTogate, means to assume proudly and 
unreasonably, to make undue claims to, from vanity or 
false pretensions. 

''Lady," "Lord." — -The original form in the Anglo Saxon 
of lady is lilaefdige, that of lord is hlaford. Hlaf is the old 
English word for loaf, and hlaefdige and hlaford, which time 
has softened into lady and lord, meant giver of bread or 
loaf. The giving of bread carried with it the responsibility 
of giving it justly, of maintaining the laws, and so the title oi 
lord came to mean a "maintainer of laws" as well as "giver 
of bread. See Cooking."' 

'•' The giving of loaves is indeed the lady's first duty ; the 
first, but the least. ISText, comes the giving of brooches : — 
seeing that her people are dressed charmingly and neatly, 
as well as herself, and have pretty furniture, like herself. 
But her chief duty of all — is to be Herself, lovely, 
lovely, not by candlelight, but by sunshine ; not out of a 
window or opera-box, but on the bare ground." Fors Cla- 
vi/jera, Letter XLV., p. 136. 

89. Dominus and Doniiiia, from the Lat. damns, a house, 
mean literally "House Lord" and "House Lady." 

dynas'^y [from a Greek word meaning to hold power or 
lordship] is anihority of government, tlie right to exercise 
supreme ])ower. 

correlative, having relations each to each. 

vassals. — A vassal is one who receives gifts from his supe- 
rior in rank and Avho vows fidelity and homnge to him. 

90. E,ex et Segina [Lat.], Roi et Reine \V\\\, king and 
queen. 

Right comes from the Latin word regere, to keep from 
going v/rong, to rule ; from which both re.c and rcgina are 
dei-ived, and from them the French words roi and reine. 



258 NOTES ON" queens' GARDENS. 

queens you must always be. — " Believe me, the whole 
course and character of your lovers' lives is in yonr hands ; 
what you would have them be, they shall be, if you not only 
desire to have them so, but deserve to have them so ; for 
they are but mirrors in which you will see yourselves imaged. 
If you are frivolous, they will be so also ; if you have no 
understanding of the scope of their duty, they also will for- 
get it ; they will listen, — they can listen. — to no other inter- 
pretation of it than that uttered from your lips. Bid them 
be brave ; — they will be brave for you ; bid them be cow- 
ards ; and how noble soever they be, they will quail for 
yon. Bid them be wise, and they will be wise for you ; 
mock at their counsel, they will be fools for you : such and 
so absolute is your rule over them. You fancy, perhaps, ?.s 
you have been told so often, that a wife's rule should only 
be over her husband's house, not over his mind. Ah, no ! 
the true rule is just the reverse of that ; a true wife, in her 
husband's house, is his servant ; it is in liis heart that she 
is queen. Whatever of the best he can conceive, it is her 
part to be ; whatever of highest he can hope, it is hers to 
promise ; all tliat is dark in him siie must purge into purity ; 
all that is failing in him she must strengthen into truth ; 
from her, through all tlic world's clamour, he must win his 
praise ; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find 
his peace.'" Crown of Wild Olive, p. ]24. 

myrtle crown. — Among the ancient Greeks, the myrtle was 
sacred to Venus, as the symbol of youth and beauty. 

91. Dei gratia, Literally, by the grace of God. — " Gra- 
ciousness joined with the Greatness, or Love with Majestas, 
is the true Dei Gratia or Divine Right, of every form and 
manner of King." Munera Fulveris, 96. 

There is not a war . . . '"^And the real, final reason 
for all the poverty, misery, and rage of battle, throughout 
Europe, is simply that you women, however good, however 
religious, however self-sacrificing for those whom you love, 
are too selfish and too thoughtless to take pains for any 
creature out of your own immediate circles. You fancy 
that you are sorry for the pain of others. Now I just tell 
you this, that if the usual course of war, instead of unroof- 
ing peasants' houses, and ravaging peasants' fields, merely 



NOTES ON queens' GARDENS, 259 

broke tlie china upon your own drawing-room tables, no war 
in civilized countries would last a week. I tell you more, 
that at whatever moment you chose to put a period to war, 
you could do it with less trouble than you take any day to 
go out to dinner. You know, or at least you might know 
if you would think, that every battle you hear of has made 
many widows and orphans. We have, none of us, heart 
enough truly to mourn with these. But at least we might 
put on the outer symbols of mourning with them. Let but 
every Christian lady who has conscience toward God, vow 
that slie will mourn, at least outwardly, for His killed creat- 
ures. Your praymg is useless, and your churchgoing mere 
mockery of God, if you have not plain obedience in you 
enough for this. Let every lady in the upper classes of 
civilised Europe simply vow that, while any cruel war pro- 
ceeds, she will wear Mack ; a mute's black, — with no jewel, 
no ornament, no excuse for, or evasion into, prettiness. — I 
tell vou again no war would last a week." — Croivn of Wild 
Olive, pp. 125 and 126. 

92. phenomena is the plural of phenomenon, an a])pear- 
ance, anything visible ; sometimes, a remarkable or unusual 
appearance. 

chrysolite is a transparent gem, varying in color from 
pale to bottle-green. Othello says of Desdemona after her 
death : — 

''Nay, had she been true, 
If Heaven would make me such another world 
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, 
I'd not have sold her for it."— Otiiello, Act V., sc. II, 

and yet she knows . . . — "You also, you tender and 
delicate women, for whom, and by whose command, all true 
battle has been, and must ever be ; you would perhaps shrink 
now, though you need not, from the thought of sitting as 
queens above set lists where the jousting game might be 
mortal. How much more, then, ought you to shrink from 
the thought of sitting above a theatre pit in which even a 
few condemned slaves were slaying each other only for your 
delight ! And do you not shrink from the fact of sitting 
above a theatre pit, where, — not condemned slaves, — but the 



260 NOTES ON queens' GARDENS. 

best and bravest of the poor sons of your people, slay each 
other, — not man to man, — as the coupled gladiators ; but 
race to race, in duel of generations ? You would tell me, 
perhaps, that you do not sit to see this ; and it is indeed true, 
that the women of Europe — those who have no heart interests 
of their own at peril in tlic contest — draw the curtains of 
their boxes, and muffle the openings ; so that from the pit 
of the circus of slaughter there may reach them only at inter- 
vals a half-heard cry and a murmur as of the wind's sighing, 
when myriads of souls expire. They shut out the death-cries ; 
and are liappy, and talk wittily among themselves. That is 
the utter literal fact of what our ladies do in their pleasant 
lives." Croivn of Wild Olive, jip. 92 and 93. 

93. " Her feet . . . daisies rosy." — Tennyson : J/fi^?/fZ, 
Part XII. 

94. "Even the light . . . airy tread." — Scott; Lady 
of the Lahe, Canto I., 18. 

hyperbole, a statement which exaggerates through passion 
or intense excitement. 

"Come thou . . . may flow cut." — Sol. Songs, i v., 16. 

feeble florets . . . — '' The last and worst thing that can 
be said of a nation is, that it has made its young girls sad 
and weary." Ethics of the Dust, p. 141. 

will you never go . . . — " Try to estimate what might 
have been the better result, for the righteousness and felicity 
of mankind, if women had been taught the deej) meaning 
of the last words that were ever spoken by their Master 
to those who had ministered to Him of their substance : 
' Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for 
yourselves, and for your children.' If they had but been 
taught to measure with their pitiful thoughts the tortures of 
battle-fields ; — the slowly consuming plagues of death in the 
starving cliildren, and wasted age, of the innumerable deso- 
late those battles left ; nay in our own life of peace, the 
agony of unnurtured, untaught, unhelped creatures, awak- 
ing at the grave's edge to know how they should have lived ; 
and the worse pain of those whose existence, not the ceasing 
of it, is death ; those to whom the cradle was a curse, and 
for whom the words they cannot hear, 'ashes to ashes,' are 
all that they have ever received of benediction. These, — 



NOTES ON queens' GARDENS. 261 

you who would fain have wept at His feet, or stood by His 
cross, — these you have always with you. Him you have not 
always." — Lectures on Art, p. 57. 

English poet's lady. — Tennyson's Maud, to whom her 
lover calls : — 

" Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown. 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone ; 

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
And the musk of the rose is blown." 

Dante's great Matilda. — Matilda, in Dante's Purgatorio, 
represents the gloritied active life, and "is with reason sup- 
posed by the commentators to be the great Countess Ma- 
tilda of the eleventh century, notable equally for the cease- 
less activity, her brilliant political genius, her perfect piety, 
and her deep reverence for the see of Rome. This Countess 
JMatilda is therefore Dante's guide in the terrestrial para- 
dise, as Beatrice is afterwards in the celestial ; each of them 
having a spiritual and symbolic character in their glorified 
state, yet retaining their definite personality." 

" This lady, observe, stands on the opposite side of the 
little stream, which, presently, she explains to Dante is 
Lethe, having power to cause iorgetfulness of all evil, and 
she stands just among the bent blades of grass at its edge. 
She is first seen gathering flower from flower, then passing 
continually the multitudinous flowers through her hands." 
— Modern Painters, Part IV., p. 215. See Dante. 

This comparison between Maud and Matilda may have 
been suggested by the likeness in name, for Maud is the 
diminutive of Matilda. 

Maud is the type of her who goes " out in the morning into 
her garden to play with the fringes of its guarded flowers, 
and lift their heads when they are drooping, with her happy 
smile upon her face, and no cloud upon her brow, because 
there is a little wall around her place of peace"; while 
Matilda goes "outside of that little rose-covered wall" 'to 
love and to bless the flowers that have thoughts like yours 



262 NOTES ON queens' gardens. 

and lives like yours and are lying with all their fresh leaves 
torn, and their stems broken.' 

"The Larkspur ... I wait." — Tennvson : Maudj 
Part XII. 

95. Madeleine is the Frencli form of Magdalene ; see St. 
John, XX., 1-18. 

vine has flourished. . . . — Sol. Songs, vi. 11. 

Take us the foxes. . . . — Sol. Songs, ii. 15. 






A 



NOTES ON THE MYSTERY OF LIFE. 



The Mystery of Life was one of a series of lectures begun 
in 1863, and continued through several years. They were 
delivered by different speakers, in the Theatre of the Miisentn 
of Industry in Dublin, and published in the annual report 
of the Committee, which was entitled The Afternoon Lec- 
tures on English Literature. 

The Preface to the first report says that the lectures were 
intended " for young men whose daily pursuits shut them 
out from the ordinary means of mental improvement," and 
that '^'^some of the restrictions of the projected course were 
as follows : — They were to be given on important subjects 
connected with English Literature, and by the best lecturers 
whose aid could be secured. It was considered essential 
that the nevv lectures should be delivered in some suitable 
building of unsectarian or neutral character." 



96. The religion which has been the foundation of art. — 

" In all my past work, my endeavor has been to show that 
good architecture is essentially religious — the production of 
a faithful and virtuous, not of an infidel and corrupted 
people. But in the course of doing this, I have had also to 
show that good architecture is not ecclesiastical. People 
are so apt to look upon religion as the business of the clerg}^, 
not their own, that the moment they hear of anything de- 
pending on * religion,' they think it must also have depended 
on the priesthood ; and I have had to take what place was 
to be occupied between these two errors, and fight both, 
often with seeming contradiction." The Crown of Wild 
Olive, p. 60. 
the policy which has contributed to its power. See Stories 



264 NOTES ON MYSTEEY OF LIFE. 

of Vefiice, vol. I., chap. I., for an illustration of the rela- 
tion of religion to art. 

crafts and arts.— ^In The Two Paths, p. 54, Ruskiii defines 
an art as '' the operation of the hand and intelligence of 
man together," and a Fine Art as "that in which the 
hands, the head, and the heart of niiin go together," and in 
Stones of Venice voL I,, p. 397, distinguishes a craft as 
" an Art wliose chief element is bodily dexterity." See also 
Stones of Venice vol. I., p. 395. 

97. I "am never fully aware, etc. — The same desire for 
a complete understanding with the audience which shows 
itself in K. T. t 5. 

physical clouds. — Sec. III. Part II. of Modern Painters 
treats entirely of clouds and cloud -eifects in painting, and 
throughout Kuskin's work there are constant evidences of 
his careful study of them. See especially Modern Painters, 
Part VII., chap. I., and Coeli PJiiarrent. "1 used to fancy 
that everybody would like clouds and rocks as well as I did, 
if once told to look at them ; whereas, after fifty years of 
trial, I find that it is not so, even in modern days ; having 
long ago known that, in ancient ones, the clouds and moun- 
tains which have been life to me, were mere inconvenience 
and horror to most of mankind." Praeterita, vol. II., 
chap. I. 

What is your life ? — James iv. 14. 

98. courses; course is manner of progress and development, 
man walketh. — Psalms xxxix., 6. 

99. in the cloud of the human soul. — " Other symbols [be- 
sides the leaves of trees] have been given often to show the 
evanescence and slightness of our lives — the foam upon the 
water, the grass on tiie housetop, the vapour that van- 
ishes away ; yet none of these are images of true human life. 
That life, when it is real, is not evanescent ; it is not slight ; 
does not vanish away. Every noble life leaves the fibre of it 
interwoven forever in the work of the world ; by so much, 
evermore, the strength of the human race has gained." 
Proserpina , p. G2. 

the mist of Eden, Genesis ii. 6. 
wells without water, 3 Peter ii. 17. 

100. Titian (1477-1576) was a Venetian painter. "Titian's 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 265 

power is simply the power of doing right. Whatever came 
before Titian he did wholly as it ought to be done. Titian 
is the greatest painter who ever lived." The Two Paths, p. 
74. 

twilight of Titian. — '^It is always to be remembered that 
Titian hardly ever paints sunshine, but a certain opalescent 
twilight which has as much of human emotion as of imita- 
tive truth in it." Modern Painters, Part II., p. 91. See 
also Lectures on Art, p. 191. 

101. Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1733-1792), "The greatest of 
English painters : one, also, than whom there is indeed no 
greater among those of any nation, or any time, — our own 
gentle Eeynolds." Lectures on Art, p. 139. See also The 
Two Paths, p. 67. 

the greatest painter . . . since Reynolds. Joseph Mal- 
lord William Turner (1775-1851). In Praeterita, vol. I., 
chap. XII., Ruskin thus describes the beginning of Modern 
Painters and Turners feeling in the matter: "In 18:36 
Turner exhibited three j)ictures, in which the characteristics 
of his later manner were developed with his best skill and 
enthusiasm : Juliet and her Nurse, Rome from Mount 
Aventine, and Mercuiy and Argns. His freak in placing 
Juliet at Venice instead of Verona, and the mysteries of 
lamp-light and rockets with wdiich he disguised Venice her- 
self, gave occasion to an article in Blackwood's Magazine of 
sufficientlv telling ribaldry, expressing, with some force, and 
extreme discourtesy, the feelings of the pupils of Sir George 
Beaumont at the appearance of these unaccredited views of 
Nature. 

"• The review raised me to the height of ' black anger' in 
which I have remained pretty nearly ever since ; and having 
by that time some confidence in my power of words, and — 
not merely judgment, bat sincere experience — of the charm 
of Turner's work, I wrote an answer to Blackwood, of which 
I wish I could now find any fragment. But my father 
thought it right to ask Turner's leave for its publication ; it 
was copied in my best hand, and sent to Queen Anne Street, 
and the old man returned kindly answer, as follows : 
13 



266 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 

' 47, Queen Ann (sie) Street West, ' * 

Odoher 6th, 1886. 

'My Dear Sir, — I beg to thank you for your zeal, kind- 
ness, and the tronble you liave taken in my behalf, in regard 
of the criticism of Blackwood's Magazine for October, re- 
specting my works ; but I never move in these matters, they 
are of no imjDort save mischief and the meal tub, which 
Maga fears for by ray having invaded the flour tub, 

" ' P. S. — If you wish to have the manuscript back, have 
the goodness to Jet me know. If not, with your sanction, I 
will send it on to the possessor of the picture of Juliet.' I 
can not give the signature of this letter, which has been cut 
off for some friend." 

See also Preface to Modern Painters, vol. Ill ; Lectures 
on Architecture, III., p. 138; Mr. PusJcin's Notes on 
his Collection of Drawings by the late J. M. W. Turner, 
R. A. 

The National Gallery of Painting in London originated in 
the purchase by Parliament, in 1834, of a private collection. 
It now contains many fine examples of the old masters, as 
well as some of the best pictures of the English school. 

Turner bequeathed to the Gallery a fine collection of his 
works, including nineteen thousand drawings, more than 
half pencil sketches in note-books. In 1856, Rnskiii 
offered, through the columns of The Times, to arrange and 
frame, at his own cost, and furnish with a printed catalogue, 
one hundred of these drawings, on condition that the entire 
management of them should be intrusted to him. The 
trustees could then decide if it would be best to have any 
more treated in the same way. His offer was accepted, and 
he eventually arranged the drawings, four hundred of them 
being framed as he recommends. See Arrows of the Chace, 
vol. I., \). 81. and Preface to 3Iodern Painters, vol, V. 

The South Kensington Museum was founded by the Prii'ce 
Consort in 1852. It contains a fine collection of water- 
color paintings, sculpture, etc. 

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph, July 5, 1876 {Arroivs 
of the Chace, vol. I., p. 100), 'Euskin says : ''You appear 
not to be aware that three hundred of the finest examples 
including all the originals of the Tiber Studiorum, were 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 267 

framed by myself, especially for the public, in the year 
1858. and have been exhibited every day, and all day long, 
ever since in London. But the public never stops a moment 
in the room at Kensington where they hang ; and the damp, 
filth, and gas (under the former management of that insti- 
tution) soiled their frames and warped the drawings, ' by 
friend remembei'ed not.'" 

These pictures have since been moved to the National 
Gallery, and the only works of Turner now at Kensington 
are a few oil aud water-color paintings. 

102. faults might be mingled. — The "faults" alluded to 
are Turner's well-known coarseness and sensuality, which 
Euskin accounts for in general terms in 71ie Political Econ- 
omy of Art, p. 29 : ''I am sorry to say, that of all parts of 
an artist's education this [to make, in the noble sense of tiie 
word, gentlemen of them] is the most neglected among us ; 
and that even where the natural taste and feeling of the 
youth have been pure and true, when there was the right 
stuff in him to make a gentleman of, you may too frequently 
discern some jarring rents in his mind, and elements of 
degradation in his treatment of subject, owing to a want of 
gentle training, and of the liberal influence of literature. 
This is quite visible in our greatest artists, even in men like 
Turner and Gainsborough." 

103. Sir Thomas Deane (1792-1871) was a well-known 
Irish architect, and 

Benjamin Woodward (died 1861) was his pupil and part- 
ner. Together, and aided by Deane's son Thomas, they 
built the Museum at Oxford, of which Euskin says : — "The 
Oxford Museum is, I believe, the first building in this coun- 
try which has had its ornamentation, in any telling parts, 
trusted to the invention of the workman : the result is 
highly satisfactory." See letter on Gothic Architecture and 
the Oxford Museum in Arrows of the Chace, vol. I., p. 125. 

facade, the exterior front or face of a building ; usually 
used only of buildings of considerable size, as palaces. 

104. Cf. The Stiuhj of Architecture, p. 8. 

105. Euskin is apt to quote carelessly. The concluding 
lines of the Second Epistle of Pope's Essay on Man are 
these : 



268 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 

*' Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays 
Those painted clouds that beautify our days ; 
Each want of happiness by hope supplied, 
And each vacuity of sense by pride, 
These build as fast as knowledge can destroy ; 
In folly's cup still laughs the bubble joy ; 
One prospect lost, another still we gain, 
And not a vanity is given in vain : 
E'en mean self-love becomes, by force divine. 
The scale to measure others' wants by thine. 
See ! and confess one comfort still must rise ; 
'Tis this, — Though man's a fool, yet God is wise." 
mirage. — A natural phenomenon which is the result of a 
peculiar state of the atmosphere. It consists in the reflec- 
tion in the atmosphere of distant objects as if double or 
suspended in air, either erect or inverted. The deception 
is so perfect as frequently fatally to mislead travellers. 
poor, the first edition has various instead of poor. 
106. "I am sometimes accused of trying to make art too 
moral ; yet, observe, I do not say in the least that in order 
to be a good painter you must be a good man ; but I do 
say that in order to be a good natural painter there must 
be strong elements of good in the mind, however warped 
by other parts of the character." TJie Tioo Paths, p. 70. 

the only answer . . . is. — KgQm,'\\\ Modern Painters, 
Part VIII., p. 191, Ruskin says : — '' No vain or selfish person 
can possibly paint in the noble sense of the word. . . . 
It is gratuitous to add that no shallow or petty person can 
paint. Mere cleverness or special gift never made an artist. 
It is only perfectness of mind, unity, depth, decision, and 
the highest qualities, in fine, of the intellect which will 
form the imagination. And lastly, no false person can 
paint." 

And, TJie Two Paths, p. 98, '' Alas ! I could as soon tell 
you how to make or manufacture an ear of wheat as to 
make a good artist of any kind." 

"Sir, you have this gift." — In proportion to the nobleness 
of the power is the guilt of its use for purposes vain or 
vile ; and hitherto the greater the art, the more surely has 
it been used, and used solely, for the decoration of pride. 



NOTES ON" MYSTERY OF LIFE. 269 

or the provoking of sensuality." Tlie Two Paths, p. 107. 
See also Ibid, \^. 49. 

107. Cf. the following from The Two Paths, p. 23 :— '' So 
long as Art is steady in the contemplation and exhibition 
of natural facts, so long she herself lives and grows ; and 
in her own life and growth partly implies, partly secures, 
that of the nations in the midst of which she is practised. 
But a time has always hitherto come, in which, having 
thus reached a singular perfection, she begins to contem- 
plate that perfection, and to imitate it, and deduce rules 
and forms from it : and thus to forget her duty and ministry 
us the interpreter and discoverer of Truth. And in the 
very instant when this diversion of her purpose and forget- 
fulness of her function take place — forgetfulness generally 
coincident with her apparent pei-fection — in that instant, 
I say, begins her actual catastrophe ; and by her own fall — 
so far as she has influence — she accelerates the ruin of the 
nation by which she is practised," 

108. that life should have no motive. — What Paiskin means 
by " motive " is further explained in Lectures on Art, p. 
3l : — " All that I ask of you is to have a tixed purpose of 
some kind for your country and yourselves ; no matter how 
restricted, so that it be fixed and unseliish. I know what 
stout hearts are in you, to answer acknowledged need ; but 
it is the fatalest form of error in English youth to hide their 
best hardihood till it fades for lack of sunshine, and to act 
in disdain of purpose, till all purpose is vain. It is not by 
deliberate, but by careless selfishness ; not by compromise 
with evil, but by dull following of good, that the weight 
of natural evil increases u]wn us daily. Break through at 
least this pretence of existence ; determine what you will 
be, and what you would win. You will not decide wrongly 
if you resolve to decide at all."' See also Arrotvs of the 
Chare, vol.11., p. 142, and Seven Lamps, p. 138. 

Antipodes (Greek avrlTtoj}?, with the feet op])osite) ; 
those whose feet are directly opposite, hence those who live 
on the other side of the world ; here the opposite side of 
the world. 

Tightness, the first edition has circumspect i07i. Notice the 
difference in meaning, and the gain in force and directness. 



270 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 

110. future; because the business, the first edition has and 
that the hisiness. 

Christian era (Late Latin aera, and often so spelled by 
Enskin, kSbb 1[ 122), an epoch of time ; a fixed point of time 
from which a series of years is reckoned, here used in the 
former sense. 

divines; men skilled in theology, commonly applied to 
clergymen. 

111. the fall of the angels, in Paradise Lost, Books V. 
and VL 

Hesiod, one of the earliest Greek poets, lived about 850 
B.C. The account referred to is contained in his Theogony, 
a work which, beginning with Chaos, traces the descent 
and wars of the gods to the triumphs of the Olympians over 
the Titans. 

Florentine maiden, Beatrice. See Q. G., 1" 60. 

112. lethargy and trance; Utliargy \% a state of morbid 
drowsiness, and trance is a condition in which a person is 
not necessarily insensible, but has lost all power of voluntary 
motion and thought. 

pompous nomenclature refers probably to Milton's descrip- 
tion of the council at Pandemonium. Paradise Lost, 
Book II. 

troubadour's guitar. The troubadours formed a school of 
poets which flourished in the south of France and adjoining 
portions of Spain and Italy, fiom the eleventh to the latter 
part of the thirteenth century. Their poetry was purely 
lyric, and generally described the charms of a mistress or 
the virtues of a patron. It was sung to tiie accompaniment 
of some musical instrument, often a guitar, and while of 
course rhythmic and musical in structure, had little depth 
of sentiment, and was ill-fitted to express strong emotion 
and intense feeling. 

the courses of the suns, that is, the movement of the heav- 
enly bodies constituting the universe, which is so harmo- 
nious that it is sometimes called " the music of the spheres." 
To '* touch a troubadour's guitar to the courses of the suns," 
would, therefore, be to endeavor to play an accompanimenii 
to the music of the spheres. And Kuskin further means 
that these men have tried with verse and thought as impo- 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 271 

tent as such music would be to follow the course of fate, and 
explain the mystery of life. 

idle puppets, etc. Enskin says that Milton and Dante have 
in Paradise Lost, and Regai7ied, and the Divina Gommedia, 
attempted to describe Heaven and Hell, "before which 
prophets veil their faces ; " Milton has pictured only a crea- 
tion of his imagination which, warped by his constant study 
of theory, is unfitted to be a guide, and Dante has simply 
shown his unfaltering faith in Beatrice. 

" It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak in enig- 
mas only, so that the highest truths and usefnllest laws 
must be hunted for through whole picture galleries of 
dreams, which to the vulgar seem dreams only. 

We shall feel ourselves more and more wonderstruck that 
men such as Homer and Dante (and, in an inferior sphere, 
Milton), not to speak of the great sculptors and painters of 
every age, have permitted themselves, though full of all no- 
bleness and wisdom, to coin idle imaginations of the mys- 
teries of eternity, and guide the faiths of the families of the 
earth by the courses of their own vague and visionary arts : 
while the indisputable truths of human life and duty, re- 
specting which they all have but one voice, lie hidden be- 
hind these veils of phantasy, unsought, and often unsus- 
pected." Munera Pulveru, p. 73. 

113. Of Shakespeare, Ruskin says in Modern Painters, 
Part v., p. SG'i : — "He seems to have been sent essentially 
to take universal and equal grasp of the liuman nature ; 
and to have been removed, therefore, from all influences 
which could in the least warp or bias his thoughts. It w^as 
necessary that he sliould lean no way ; that he should con- 
template, with absolute equality of judgment, the life of 
the court, cloister, and tavern, and be able to sympathize 
so completely with all creatures as to deprive himself, to- 
gether with his personal identify, even of his conscience, as 
he casts himself into their hearts. He must be able to 
enter into the soul of Falstaff or Shylock with no more sense 
of contempt or honor than Falstali' or Shylock themselves 
feel for or in themselves ; otherwise his own conscience and 
indignation would make him unjust to them ; he would turn 



272 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFR 

aside from something, miss some good, or overloek some 
essential palliation. He must be utterly without anger, 
utterly without purpose ; for, if a man has any ser- 
ious purpose in life, that which runs counter to it, or is 
foreign to it, will be looked at frowningly or carelessly by 
him. 

Shakespeare was forbidden by Heaven to have anj plans. 
To do any good or get any good, in the common sense of 
good, was not to be within his permitted range of work. 
. . . Neither he nor the sun, did on any morning that 
they rose together, receive charge from their Maker con- 
cerning such things [as founding of institutions]. They 
were both of them to shine on the evil and good ; both to 
behold unoffendedlv all that was upon the earth." 

114. the great Homeric story ; the Iliad. — The part re- 
ferred to is in substance this : Discord, angry because she 
was not invited to the feast at the wedding of Peleus and 
Thetis, a sea-nymph, and one of the immortals, threw into 
the midst of the guests a golden apple on which was written 
"^ For the fairest." Juno, Venus, and Minerva each claim- 
ing it, Paris, son of Priam and Hecuba, king and queen of 
Troy, was appointed judge by Jupiter. Juno tried to bribe 
him by power and riches, Minerva, by glory and renown in 
war, but he gave the apple to Venus, who promised him the 
most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. Guided 
by Venus, Paris persuaded this "^most beautiful woman," 
Helen, wife of Menalaus, king of Sparta, to flee with him 
to Troy. Menelaus at once called on 'the warriors of Greece 
to help him recover his wife. The result was the Trojan 
war. Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus, was commander- 
in-chief of the Greeks, and the other most celebrated heroes 
were Achilles, Ajax, Ulysses, and Nestor. On the side of 
the Trojans were Hector, another son of Priam, Aeneas, 
Deiphobus, Glaucus, and Sarpedon. 

Achilles, son of Thetis, is the hero of the Iliad, which 
begins with a quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, 
the cause of which was this. In one of the first battles 
of the war, Agamemnon had captured Chryseis, daughter 
of Chryses, a priest of Apollo, and refused to give her up. 
Thereupon Apollo sent a pestilence into the Grecian camp, 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 273 

and Achilles at once accused Agamemnon of being the cause 
of the calamity and demanded that he should part with 
Chryseis. Agamemnon consented, on condition that Achil- 
les should give him, in her stead, Briseis, a beautiful cap- 
tive who had been given to Achilles when the spoils were 
divided. She is the ''mistress" of whom Euskin speaks. 

Achilles, furious at the injustice of Agamemnon, yielded 
to him, but at once withdrew his forces, and declared his 
intention of returning to Greece. Thetis, interceding for 
her sou, persuaded Jupiter to give the next victory to the 
Trojans. The Greeks, alarmed, prevailed on Agamemnon to 
give up Briseis, and sent messages to that effect to Achilles, 
who remained determined to return home. A second battle 
with the Trojans, seeming likely to result in more complete 
defeat, Achilles at last consented to allow his myrmidons to 
engage in it, led l)y Patroclus, his dearest friend, wearing 
the armor of Achilles, in order to terrify the enemy. For a 
time, Patroclus carried all before him, but at last he was 
killed by Hector. 

AYhen news of the death of Patroclus was brought to 
Achilles, he was wild with rage and grief. His only thought 
and desire was to avenge his friend. Aided by Pallas, ''' the 
wisest of the gods," he wounded Hector fatally, and dragged 
his body, tied to his chariot, around the city of Troy and 
the tomb of Patroclus. 

Achilles was at last killed by Paris, " the basest of his ad- 
versaries," while he was arranging a marriage with Polyx- 
ena, the daughter of Priam, with whom he had fallen in 
love, and for whose sake he had tried, ineffectually, to 
arrange a peace between the Greeks and Trojans. 

115. our own poet, Shakspere, see K. T., *[ 25. 

He, indeed, as part of his rendering of character ; the first 
edition has, "With necessary truth of insight, he indeed." 

Katherine of Arragon, first wife of Henry VIH. The fol- 
lowing scene on her death-bed is from Shakspere's Henry 
Vm., Activ. Sc.ii. :— 

Katherine. Spirits of peace, where are ye ? Are ye all 
gone, and leave me here in wretchedness behind ye ? 
Griffith. Madam, we are here. 



274 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 

Kath. It is not you I call for : 

Saw ye none enter since I slept ? 

Gi'if. None, madam. 

Kath. No ? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop 
Invite me to a banquet ; whose bright faces 
Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun? 
They promised me eternal happiness, 
And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel 
I am not worthy yet to wear : I shall, assuredly. 

Grif. I am most joyful, madam, such good dreams 
Possess your fancy. 

the great soldier-king, Henry V. of England. — Shakspere 
makes him say in Henry V., Act iv. Sc. viii. : — 
Where is the number of our English dead ? 

[^Herald presents another paper. '\ 
Edward the duke of York, the earl of Suffolk, 
Sir Eichard Ketley, Davy Gam, esquire : 
None else of name ; and of all other men. 
But five and twenty. God ! Thy arm was here, 
And not to us but to Thy arm alone 
Ascribe we all. — When without stratagem 
But in plain shock, and even play of battle. 
Was ever known so great and little loss, 
On one part and on the other ? — Take it, God, 
For it is only Thine ! 
Exeter. 'Tis wonderful ! 

King. Come, go we in procession to the village. 

And be it death proclaimed through our host 
To boast of this, or take that praise from God, 
Which is His only. 
Fluellen. Is it not lawful, an please your majesty, to tell 
how many is kill'd ? 

King. Yes, captain ; but with this acknowledgment. 
That God fought for us. 

the gods are just. — King Lear, Act v., Sc. iii. 
arbitration, a deciding according to one's will or pleasure, 
uncontrolled or absolute decision ; an obsolete meaning, 
there's a divinity. — Hamlet, Act v., Sc. ii. 
Instead of the perpetual sense, etc., Cf. the following 



NOTES ON MYSTEKY OF LIFE. 275 

from Deucalio?i, vol. II., p. 50 : — ''I have again and again 
pointed out in passages scattered through writings carefully 
limited in assertion, between 18G0 and 1870, that the heroic 
actions on which the material destinies of this world depend 
are almost invariably done under the conception of death as 
a calamity, which is to be endured by one for the deliver- 
ance of many, and after wliich there is no personal reward 
to be looked for, but the gratitude or fame of which the 
victim anticipates no consciousness.'' See also Aratra Pen- 
tilici, p. 43. 

118. The child is father of the man; from AVordsworth's 
poem : — 

•'My Heart Leaps Up." 

My heart leaps up when I behold 

A rainbow in the sky. 
So was it when my life began ; 
So is it now I am a man ; 
So be it when I shall grow old 

Or let me die ! 
The child is father of the man ; 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety. 

120. You sent for me. — Of. this with the following : — 
" Does it never occur to you, then, that to some of the best and 
wisest artists among ourselves, it may not be always possible 
to explain what pretty things they are making ; and that, 
perhaps, the very perfection of their art is in their knowing 
so little about it ? . . . The greatest artists, indeed, will 
condescend, occasionally, to be scientific; — will labour, some- 
what systematically, about what they are doing, as vulgar 
persons do ; and are privileged, also, to enjoy what they 
have made more than birds do ; yet seldom, observe you, as 
being beautiful, but very much in the sort of feeling which 
we may fancy the bullfinch had also, — that the thing, 
wliether pretty or ugly, could not have been better done ; 
that they could not have made it otherwise, and are thank- 
ful it is no worse. And, assuredly, they have nothing like 
the delight in their own work which it gives to other 
people." The Eagle's Ned, p. 46. 



276 NOTES ON" MYSTERY OP LIFE. 

Even Reynolds is no exception. — Sir Joshua Reynolds 
wrote several lectures on art and numerous articles on mis- 
cellaneous subjects. 

121. approximates, comes close to ; commonly signifying 
an approach to similarity, identity, or accuracy, in any 
respect. 

innate (Latin prefix in, and natus, born) inborn, native, 
natural. 

improvises, to improvise is to bring about off hand. 

In an architect, ''inflate cunning of 2)roportion " leads to 
the production of forms of beauty, and " divine ingenuity of 
skill ■' solves immediately all problems of construction. 

Alps on Alps. — In 77ie Poetry of Arcltitecture, p. 32, 
note, Ruskin says in reference to the phrase, " their summer 
pasture on the high Alps" ;— "I use the word Alp, here and 
in future, in its proper sense, of a high mountain pasture ; 
not in its secondary sense, of a snowy peak." 

122. Gustave Dor6, (1S32-1883) a French artist. ''Gus- 
tavo Dore's is not a common mind, and, if born in any other 
epoch, he would probably have done valuable (though never 
first- rate) work; but, by glancing (it will be impossible for 
you to do more than glance) at his illustrations of Balzac's 
" Oontes Drolatiques,"' you will see further how this "dro- 
latiqne,'" or semi-comic mask, is, in the truth of it, the 
mask of a skull, and how the tendency to burlesque jest is 
both in France and England only an effervescence from the 
cloaca maxima of the putrid instincts which fasten them- 
selves on national sm ; . . . the mocking levity and 
mocking gloom being equally signs of the death of the soul; 
just as, contrariwise, a passionate seriousness and passionate 
joyfulness are signs of its full life in works such as those of 
Angelico, Luini, Ghiberti, or La Robbia." The St^idy of 
Arcltitecture, p. 21. 

Furies. — The Furies (true name Erinnyes, from erin-no, I 
am angry) three in number, were avenging goddesses who 
sliiired with the Fates the control of the destiny of man, 
and ])unished crime. They wei'e sometimes described as 
horrible, like the Harpies, and sometimes, more attractively, 
as winged virgins with torches. 

The Harpies were fabulous monsters in Greek mythology. 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF TJFE. 277 

They were two or three in number and described as fearful 
and loathsome in appearance, and living in an atmosphere 
of filth, and stench. They executed the vengeance of the 
gods. 

The anger of which Ruskin speaks here, he calls in Lec- 
tures on Art, p. 160: — "The anger of fate, whether pre- 
doomed or avenging ; the root and theme of all Greek trag- 
edy ; the anger of the Erinnyes and Demeter Erinnyes, 
compared to which the anger either of Apollo or Athena is 
temporary and partial." 

For, indeed, the arts . . . created. — Of. '• There is a 
noble way of carving a man, and a mean one ; and there is 
a noble way of carving a beetle, and a mean one ; . . . 
And it is a sorrowful truth, yet a sublime one, that this 
greatness of treatment can not be taught by talking about 
it. No, nor even by enforced imitative practice of it. Men 
treat their subjects nobly only when they themselves become 
noble ; not till then. . . . 

Art, national or individual, is the result of a long course 
of previous life and training ; a necessary result, if that life 
has been loyal, and an impossible one, if it has been base." 
The IStudii of ArcMtidnre, p. 7. 

Whole aeras of mighty history. — " For, be assured, that all 
the best things and treasures of this world are not to be pro- 
duced by each generation for itself ; but we are all intended, 
not to carve our work in snow tluit will melt, but each and 
all of us to be continually rolling a great white gathering 
snow-ball, higher and higher — larger and larger — along the 
Alps of human power. Thus the science of nations is to 
be accumulative from father to son : each learning a little 
more and a little more ; each receiving all that was known, 
and adding its own gain : the history and poetry of nations 
are to be accumulative; each generation treasuring the his- 
tory and the songs of its ancestors, adding its own history 
and its own songs ; and the art of nations is to be accumu- 
lative, just as science and history are ; the work of living 
men not su])erscding, but building itself upon the work of 
the past. Nearly every great and intellectual race of the 
world has produced, at every period of its career, an art 
with some peculiar and precious character about it, wholly 



278 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 



I 



unattainable by any other race, and at any other time ; and 
the intention of Providence concerning that art, is evidently 
that it should all grow together into one mighty temple ; 
the rough stones and the smooth all finding their place, 
and rising, day by day, in richer and higher pinnacles to 
Heaven." Political Economij of Art, p. 56. See also 
Lectures on Art, p. 7, and Homings in Florence, p. 43. 

123. recession; the act of receding or withdrawing, with 
an implied acknowledgment of error in onr position. 

lecture since published. The title of this lecture was The 
Deteriorative Povjer of Conventional Art over Nations. It 
was delivered at the Kensington Museum in Jan., 1858, 
and published in 1859 with four other lectures on art in a 
volume entitled The Tivo Paths. 

124. The '• Irish angel " is copied from a psalter of the 
eighth century in the library of St John's College, Cam- 
bridge, and the ''Lombardic Eve" is from the "Serpent 
bcgniling Eve " in the church of St. Ambrogio of Milan. 




Ruskin calls them "two examples of the barbarism out of 
which Gothic art emerges, approximately contemporary in 
date and parallel in executive skill ; but the one, a barba- 
rism that did not get on, and could not get on ; the other, a 
barbarism that could get on, and did get on." 

"The Eve, rude and ludicrous as it is, has the elements 
of life in their first form. The workman's whole aim is 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 279 

straight at the facts, as well as he can get them, and not 
merely at the facts, but at the \ery heart of the facts. A 
common workman might have looked at nature for his ser- 
pent, but he would have thought only of its scales. But 
this fellow does not want scales, nor coils ; he wants the 
serpent's heart — malice and insinuation ; — and he has actu- 
ally got them to some extent. So also a common workman, 
even in this barbarous stage of art, might have carved Eve's 
arms and body a good deal better ; but this man does not care 
about arms and body, if he can only get at Eve's mind — 
show that she is pleased at being flattered, and yet in a 
state of uncomfortable hesitation. And some look of listen- 
ing, of complacency, and of embarrassment he has verily 
got : — note the eyes slightly askance, the lips compressed, 
and the right hand nervously grasping the left arm : noth- 
ing can be declared impossible to the people who could 
begin thus — the world is open to them, and all that is in it ; 
while, on the contrary, nothing is possible to the man who 
did the symmetrical angel — the world is keyless to him ; he 
has built a cell for liimself in which he must abide, barred 
up forever." The Two Paths, p. 28. 

125. arrest in Irish art. — ('f. Croivn of Wild Olive, p. 53, 
where Ruskin fays : — " I could show you that a nation can- 
not be affected by any vice or weakness, without expressing 
it, legibly and forever, either in bad art, or by want of art ; 
and that there is not a national virtue, small or great, which 
is not manifestly ex])ressed in all the art which circum- 
stances enable tlie people possessing that virtue to produce." 
See also, pp. 49 and 51 in C. of ¥'. 0. 

127. feel themselves wrong. — " The more readily we admit 
the possibility of our own cherished convictions being mixed 
with error, the more vital and helpful whatever is right in 
them will become." Ethics of the Dust, X. p. 231. 

and the grasp of, the first edition has realization of. 

128. " By far the greater part of the suffering and crime 
which exist at this moment in civilized Europe, arises simply 
from the people not understanding this truism — not know- 
ing that jii'oduce or wealth is eternally connected by the 
laws of heaven and earth with resolute labor ; but hoping 
in some way to cheat or abrogate this everlasting law of life. 



280 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 

and to feed where they have not furrowed, and be warm 
where they have not woven. . . . The law of nature is, 
that a certain quantity of work is necessary to produce a 
certain quantity of good, of any kind whatever. If you 
want knowledge, you must toil for it ; if food, you must 
toil for it ; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. But men 
do not acknowledge this law, or strive to evade it, hoping 
to get their knowledge, and food, and pleasure for nothing ; 
and in this effort they either fail of getting them, and re- 
main ignorant and miserable, or obtain them by making 
other men work for their benefit ; and then they are tyrants 
and robbers." The Two Paths, p. 1?8. See also Modern 
Painters, Part III., p. 108, 

whatsoever thy hand findeth to do. — Ecclesiastes, ix., 10. 

129. Forest Cantons. In 1291, Ilri, Schwyz, and Unter- 
walden, three small mountainous districts, bordering upon 
Germany, France, and Italy, and under the protection of 
the German emperor, formed a league for mutual protec- 
tion against the powerful nobles whose domains surrounded 
them. In 1332, Lucerne joined the confederacy which then 
received the name of the Four Forest Cantons. From time 
to time other cantons joined the league, and the whole came 
to be known by the name of one canton, Schwyz, the mod- 
ern Switzerland, 

The Reformation in the 16th century was the cause of 
much civil war in the cantons in which the victorious 
Roman Catholic religion was defended by the Forest Can- 
tons. Switzerland became independent of Germany in 1648. 

Vaudois or Waldenses, a religious sect found mostly in 
the valleys of the Western Alps. The sect probably origi- 
nated about 1170. in the efforts of Petrus Waldus, a citizen 
of Lyons, to reform the Roman Catholic Church. He and 
his followers were excommunicated, and, during the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, the sect was very much 
persecuted, by the Romish Churcli. They clung to their 
faith, however, and now have full civil and religious lib- 
erty. See Deucalion, vol. II., p. 52 ; and, for a eulogy of 
the Swiss, Modern Painters, Part VI., p, 84. 

Garden of the Hesperides. — " The Garden of the Hesperides 
was supposed to exist in the westernmost part of the Cyre- 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 281 

Tiaica ; it was generally the expression for the beauty and 
luxuriant vegetation of the coast of Africa in that district " 
[the northwestern part]. Modern Painters, Part IX., 
p. 300. 

our own dominion ; India, see Orissa. 

130. Virgin goddess, Minerva ; see Minerva. 

wisest king, Solomon, Proverbs xxxi. 10-31. Of this 
passage Kuskin says : — 

" Now you will observe that in this description of the 
perfect economist, or mistress of a household, there is a 
studied expression of the balanced division of his case be- 
tween the two great objects of utility and splendor ; in her 
right hand, food and flax, for life and clothing ; in her left 
hand, the purple and the needle— work for honour and for 
beauty, all perfect housewifery or national economy is known 
by these two divisions ; wherever either is wanting, the 
economy is imperfect." 

clouts (Anglo-Saxon dut, a little cloth), patches. 

I was naked, etc., Matthew xxv., 43. 

131. civic pride (Latin civis, a citizen). " Take care 
that in every town the little roofs are built before the 
large ones, and that everybody who wants one has got 
one. And we must try also to m;ike everybody want 
one. That is to say. at some not very advanced period 
of life, men should desire to have a home, which they do not 
wish to quit any more, suited to their habits of life, and 
likely to be more and more suitable to them until their 
death. And men must desire to have these dwelling places 
built as strongly as possible, and furnished and decorated 
daintily, and set in pleasant places, in bright light and good 
air, being able to choose for themselves that, at least, as well 
as swallows. And when the houses are grouped together in 
cities, men must have so much civic fellowship as to subject 
their architecture to a common law, and so much civic 
pride as to desire that the whole gathered group of human 
dwellings should be a lovely thing, not a frightful one, on 
the face of the earth." Lectures on Art, p. 120. 

thg ramparts built by poor atoms ; the reefs formed by coral 
poly]is, a low order of aquatic animals. 

132. cast away their labour. — " Of all wastes, the greatest 



282 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 

waste tliat vou can commit is the waste of labor." Crown 
of Wild Olive, p. 35. 

what have we accomplished. — "We think ourselves priv- 
ileged, first among men, to know the secrets of Heaven, and 
fulfil the economy of earth ; and the result is, that of all the 
races that yet have been put to shame by their false wisdom 
or false art, — which have given their labour for that which 
is not bread, and their strength for that which satisfieth 
not, — we have most madly abandoned the charity which is 
for itself sufficing, and for others serviceable, and have be- 
come of all creatures the most insufficient to ourselves, and 
the most malignant to our neighbours." EagWs Nest, p. 73. 

133. although your days are numbered. — "Men's proper 
business in this world falls mainly into three divisions : 
First, to know themselves, and the existing state of things 
they have to do with. Secondly, to be happy in tliemselves, 
and in the existing state of things. Thirdly, to mend them- 
selves, and the existing state of things, as far as either are 
marred or mendable." Modern Painters, Part IV., p. 44. 

He maketh the winds his messengers, Hebrews i., 7, and 
Psalms civ., 4. 

134. Dies Irae, the name generally given to the famous 
medieval hymn on the last judgment, of which the first 
stanza is : 

Dies irae, dies ilia 

Sol vet saeclum in favilla 

Teste David cum Sybilla. 

135. Ananias, Acts x., 1-10.— '' There is not a building 
that I know of, lately raised, wherein it is not sufficiently 
evident that neither architect nor builder has done his best. 
It is the especial characteristic of modern work. All old 
work nearly has been hard work. . . . Ours has as 
constantly the look of money's worth, of a stopping short 
wherever and whenever we can, of a lazy compliance with 
low conditions ; never of a fair ])utting forth of our 
strength." Seven Lamps, p. 20. 

taking up our cross. — "'Taking up one's cross' means 
simply that you are to go the road which you see to be the 
straig'ht one ; carrying whatever you find is given you to 
carry, as well and stoutly as you can. . . . Above all. 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 283 

you are neither to load, nor unload, yourself ; nor cut your 
cross to your own liking. . . . But all that you have 
really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can ; 
and not think about what is upon it — above all, not to boast 
of what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of 
'virtue' is in that straightness of back." Ethics of the 
Dust, VII. p. 148. 

Levi, Luke v. 27 ; Peter, Matthew iv. 18 ; Paul, Acts 
ix. 3. — " 'Mind your own business.' It is a serviceable 
principle enough for men of the world, but a surprising 
one in the mouth of a person who professes to be a Bible 
obeyer. For, as far as I remember the tone of that obsolete 
book, 'our own ' is precisely the last business which it tells 
us to mind. It tells us often to mind God's business, often 
to mind other people's business ; our own, in any eager or 
earnest Avay, not at all. ' What thy hand findeth to do.' 
Yes : but in God's fields, not ours. One can imagine the 
wiser fisliermen of the Galileean lake objecting to Peter and 
Andrew that they were not minding their business, much 
more the commercial friends of Levi speaking with gentle 
pity of him about the receipt of custom." Arroivs of the 
Ghace, vol. II., p. 7. 

136. indiscriminate charity. — "Xo almsgiving of money is 
so helpful as almsgiving of care and thought ; the giving of 
money without thought is indeed continually mischievous, 
but the invective of the economist against /^^-discriminate 
charity is idle, if it be not coupled with pleading for dis- 
criminate charity, and, above all, for that charity which 
discerns the uses that people may be put to, and helps them 
by setting them to work in those services. That is the help 
beyond all others ; find out how to make useless people use- 
ful, and let them earn their money instead of begging it. 
Few are so feeble as to be incapable of all occupation, none 
so faultful but that occupation, well chosen, and Idndly 
compelled, will be medicine for them in sonl and body." 
Arrows of the Chace, vol. II., p. 131. See also Notes on the 
General Principles of Employment for the Destitute and 
Griminal Classes, Arrows of the Ghace, vol. II., p. 133. 

137. always neat and clean. — " Moral education begins in 
makinsr the creature to be educated, clean and obedient. 



284 NOTES ON MYSTEEY OF LIFE. 

This must, be done thoroughly, and at any cost, and with 
any kind of compulsion rendered necessary by the nature of 
the animal, be it dog, child, or man," Fors (Jlavigera, Letter 
LXVII., p. 150. 

consistent dress for different ranks — Euskin has always 
held this opinion, for in his early work, Modern Painters, 
Part IX., p. 329, he says: — "Every effort should be made 
to induce the adoption of a national costume. Cleanliness 
and neatness in dress ought always to be rewarded by some 
gratification of personal pride ; and it is the peculiar yirtue 
of a national costume that it fosters and gratifies the wish 
to look well, without inducing the desire to look better 
than one's neighbors — or tlie hope, peculiarly English, of 
being mistaken for a person in a higher position of life," 
and in his latest, Praeterifa, Chap. X., he approves the 
feeling which he says largely influenced his father in making 
a Gentleman-Commoner rather than a Commoner of him at 
Oxford, because the gown was more attractive. Instead of 
abolishing distinctions of dress at the University, he would 
have them "extended into tiie entire social order of the 
country," and adds, " I tliink that nobody but duchesses 
should be allowed to wear diamonds ; that lords should be 
known from common people by their stars, a quarter of a 
mile off ; that every peasant girl should boast her county 
by some dainty ratification of cap or bodice ; and that in 
the towns a vintner should be known from a fishmonger 
by the cut of his jerkin." 

Of the responsibility of women in the matter, he affirms 
that " after recovering, for the poor, wholesomeness of food, 
your next step towards founding schools of art in England 
must be in recovering, for the poor, decency and whole- 
someness of dress ; thoroughly good in substance, fitted for 
their daily work, becoming to their rank in life, and worn 
with order and dignity. And this order and dignity must 
be taught them by the women of the upper and middle 
classes, whose minds can be in nothing right, as long as 
they are so wrong in this matter as to endure the scpialor 
of the poor, while they themselves dress gaily." Lectures 
on Art, p. 118. 

vested interests. — This refers to the many large estates in 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 285 

England that have for centuries been held by the possessors 
under conditions fixed by law, so that the holder can not 
dispose of the estate. 

138. cleanliness and order. — "'No true luxury, wealth, or 
religion is possible to dirty persons ; nor is it decent or 
human to attempt to compass any temporal prosperity 
whatever by the sacrifice of cleanliness. The speedy aboli- 
tion of all abolishable filth is the first process of education." 
Fors Clavifjera, Letter LXVII., p. 150. 

Savoy inn. — " The little inn at Samoens where I washed 
the stairs down for my mother." Praeterita, vol. XL, 
chap. XI. 

"The quite happiest bit of manual work I ever did was 
for my mother in the old inn at Sixt, where she alleged 
the stone staircase to have become unpleasantly dirty, since 
last year. Nobody in the inn appearing to think it possi- 
ble to wash it, I brought the necessary buckets of water 
from the yard myself, poured them into beautiful image 
of Versailles water-works down the fifteen or twenty steps 
of the great staircase, and with the strongest broom I could 
find, cleaned every step into its corners. It was quite lovely 
Avork to dash the water and drive the mud, from each, 
with accumulating splash down the next one." Praeterita^ 
vol. II.. chap. X. 

139. the speculation of all our lives. — "It is as little the 
part of a wise man to reflect much on the nature of beings 
above him, as of beings beneath him. It is immodest to 
suppose that he can conceive the one, and degrading to sup- 
pose that he should be busied with the other. To recognize 
his everlasting inferiority, and his everlasting greatness ; to 
know himself and his place ; to be content to sul)mit to 
Gocl without understanding Him ; and to rule the lower 
creation with sympathy and kindness, yet neither sharing 
the passion of the wild beast, nor imitating the science of 
the insect ; — this you will find is to be modest toward God, 
gentle to His creatures, and wise for himself." The Eagle's 
JSied, p. 28. 

competitive examination. — "It is necessary to distinguish 
carefully between the competition which is for the means 
of existence, and that which is for the praise of learning. 



286 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 

For my own part, so far as they affect our studies here, I 
equally regret both : but competition for money I regret 
absolutely ; competition for praise, only when it sets the 
reward for too short and narrow a race. I want you to 
compete, not for the praise of what you know, but for the 
praise of what you become ; and to compete only in that 
great school, where Death is the examiner, and God the 
judge." Eagle's Nest, p. 180. 

"All that you can depend upon in a boy, as significative 
of true power, likely to issue in good fruit, is his will to 
work for the work's sake, not his desire to surpass iiis school- 
fellows ; and the aim of the teaching you give him ought 
to be, to prove to him and strengthen in him his own 
separate gift, not to puff him into swollen rivalry with 
those who are everlastingly greater than he ; still less ought 
you to hang favours and ribands about the neck of the crea- 
ture who is the greatest, to make the rest envy him. Try to 
make them love him and follow him, not struggle with him. 

There must of course be examination to ascertain and 
attest both progress and relative capacity ; but our aim 
should be to make the students rather look upon it as a 
means of ascertaining their own true positions and powers 
in the world, than as an arena in which to carry away a 
present victory." Political Ecotiomy of Art, p. 109. 

140. Pharisee's thanksgiving, Luke xviii., 10. — "The 
pride of Faith is now, as it has been always, the most 
deadly, because the most complaisant and subtle ; — because 
it invests every evil passion of our nature with the aspect 
of an angel of light, and enables the self-love, which might 
otherwise have been put to wholesome shame, and the cruel 
carelessness of the ruin of our fellow-men, which might 
otherwise have warmed into human love, or at least been 
checked by human intelligence, to congeal themselves into 
the mortal intellectual disease of imagining that myriads 
of the inhabitants of the world for four thousand years 
have been left to wander and perish, many of them everlast- 
ingly, in order that, in fulness of time, divine truth might 
be preached sufficiently to ourselves ; with this further 
ineffable mischief for direct result, that multitudes of kindly 
disposed, gentle, and submissive persons, who might else, by 



NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 287 

their true patience, ha^-e alloyed the hardness of the com- 
mon crowd, and by their activity for good, balanced its 
misdoing, are withdrawn from all such true service of man, 
that they may pass the best part of their lives in what they 
are told is the service of God ; namely, desiring what they 
cannot obtain, lamenting what they cannot avoid, and re- 
flecting on what they cannot understand." Lectures on Art, 
p. 42. 

push at it together. — "You have not often heard me use 
that word 'independence.' And in the sense in which it 
has of late been accepted, you have never lieard me use it 
but with contempt. For the true strength of every human 
soul is to be dependent on as many nobler as it can discern 
and to be depended upon by as many inferior as it can 
reach." 

grievous and vain meditation. — '' That abandonment of 
the mind to religious theory, or contemplation, is the very 
thing I have been pleading with you against. I never said 
you should set yourself to discover the meanings ; but you 
should take careful pains to understand them, so far as they 
are clear ; and you should always accurately ascertain the 
state of your mind about them. I want you never to read 
merely for the pleasure of fancy ; still less as a formal 
religious duty (else you might as well take to repeating 
Paters at once ; for it is surely wiser to repeat one thing we 
understand than read a thousand which we can not. . . . 
Do not go on, all through your life believing nothing intel- 
ligently, and yet supposing that your having read the 
words of a divine book must give you the right to despise 
every religion but your own." Ethics of the Dust, X., 
p. 225, 

can they plough. — '' I believe all youths of whatever rank, 
ought to learn some manual trade thoroughly ; for it is 
quite wonderful how much a man's views of life are cleared 
by the attainment of the capacity of doing any one thing 
well with his hands and arms. . . . Then, in literary 
and scientific teaching, the great point of economy is to give 
the discipline of it through knowledge which will immedi- 
ately bear on practical life." Political Economy of Art, 
p. 100. 



288 NOTES ON MYSTERY OF LIFE. 

And then shall abide for them. — " To watch the corn grow 
and the blossoms set ; to draw hard breath over plowshare 
or spade ; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray, — 
these are the things which make men happy ; they have 
always had the power of doing these, they never wUl have 
power to do more. The world's prosperity or adversity 
depends upon our knowing and teaching these few things : 
but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, in no wise." 
Modern Painters, Part IV., p. 303. 

Charity. — " Among the many mistakes we have lately 
fallen into, touching that same charity, one of the worst 
is our careless habit of always thinking of her as pitiful, 
and to be concerned only with miserable and wretched 
persons; whereas her chief joy is in being reverent, and 
concerned mainly with noble and venerable persons. Her 
poorest function is the giving of pity ; her highest is the 
giving of jwaise. For there are many men who, however 
fallen, do not like to be pitied ; but all men, however far 
risen, like to be praised." 2'lie Eaglets Nest, p. 179. 



INDEX. 
A. 

Abide for them, and then shall 288, 187 

abstruse of subjects 204, xi 

accomplished, what have we 282, 176 

Achilles 272,72, 154 

acquisitiveness 218, 10 

adamantine 245, 89 

iEgina 256,120 

aeras of mighty history 277, 1G6 

ffischylus 249, 97 

Ah, wasteful woman 249, 99 

Alcestis 248,95 

AUce Bridgenorth 246, 92 

Alice Lee 246, 92 

AUghieri 226, 41 

alphabet, Greek 222, 28 

Alps on Alps ...276, 164 

amain 222, 29 

ambiguity 215, 5 

Ananias 282, 179 

Andromache 247, 95, 273 

angels, the fail of the 270, 151 

angels, the three great 240, 75 

anglaise, vous gtes 211, xxvi 

Anglesea 256, 119 

Anonymas 211, xxv 

answer, the only 268, 145 

Antigone 248, 95 

Antipodes 269, 147 

Antony 244, 88 

13 



290 INDEX. 

anything in this series 195, iv 

apathy 218, 13, 14(i, 147 

approximates 276, 1G3 

arbitration , 274, 156 

armour, impenetrable 240, 75 

arrest in Irish art 279, 168 

arrogated 257, 124 

arrows . . of juniper 256, 119 

art 230, 54 

art, arrest in Irish 279, 168 

articles 226, 41 

arts, crafts and 264, li!5 

arts . . created 277, 166 

associations 218, 12 

Athena 239, 75; 249, 96 

atoms, ramparts built by poor 281, 175 

attempt at compassing, infirm ... .253, 1 1 1 

Austrian guns 231, 56 

autobiography 212, xxix 

aware, never fully 264, 135 

awful 220, 25 

B. 

Baptise them, you cannot 256, 131 

Beatrice 245,90 

Believe me, the only right principle 209, xx 

beneficent 218, 11, 85, 125, 161 

biblion 220, 26 

biblos 220, 26 

Bishops of Rome 223, 30 

books, reading valueless , 199, vi 

boy, unhappy crazed 228, 47 

Breakup . . thorns 226,42 

Britomart 249, 96 

business, because the. 270, 150 

c. 

Caesar , 244, 88 

Caina 237,71 



INDEX. 291 

canaille 219, 23 

cantel 239, 73 

Cantons, Forest 280, 172 

Cassandra 247, 95 

catastrophe 217, 8, 45, 88 

Catherine Seyton 246, 93 

Chalmers 236, 68 

chamae-leon 220, 25 

character, rendering of 273, 156 

Charity 288, 188 

charity, indiscriminate 283, 181 

Charity, Sister of 209, xxiii 

Chaucer 248, 96 

child, is father of tlie man 275, 161 

children, you cannot lead your 256, 121 

Christian era 270, 151 

chrysolite 259,128 

Clarens shore 232, 57 

Claverhouse 246, 91 

clean, always neat and 283, 182 

cleanliness and order 285, 183 

cliffs, Delphian 240, 75 

cloud of the human soul 264, 187 

clouds, physical 264, 136 

clouts 281, 174 

collateral 218,11,27,141 

come il frate, etc 226, 41 

Come thou . . may flow out 260, 131 

compass 206, x v, 6 

compassion 234, 18, 63 

concerted piece 206, xv 

cooking, go and help in the 207, xvi 

Cordelia 244, 88 

Coriolanus 244, 88 

corn la.^xrs 241, 78 

correlative 257, 125 

council, privy 218, 14 

countenance 252, 106 

courage, bringing 246, 90 



292 INDEX. 

courses 264, 136, 91 

courses of the suns 270, 153 

coxcomb, oh murderous 245, 89 

crafts and arts 264, 135 

Cranmer 225, 40 

cretinous 223, 36 

cross, taking up our 282, 179 

crown, myrtle 258, 126 

Cruelty, Idleness and 204, xi 

cruel, you are not to be 208, xviii 

custom, Scythian 237, 70 

cutaneous 233, 57 

D. 

Dandie Dinmont 246, 91 

Dante 223, 36, 97, 151 

daughter of Herodias 211, xxix 

daughter, one true 245, 89 

day passes, now, therefore, see that no 205, xiii 

days are numbered, although your 282, 177 

Deane, Sir Thomas 267, 141 

Dean of Christ Church 255,116 

degrees of pain 208, xix 

Dei gratia 258, 127 

Delphian cliffs 240, 75 

Demand and Supply . 201, ix 

demi-monde, monde and 210, xxv, 61 

Desdemona 244, 88 

dialects 222, 28 

Diana Vernon 246, 92 

Dieslrae 282,178 

Dio , 235, 65 

diocese 217, 9 

disteso, tanto vilmente, etc 226, 40 

divines 270, 151 

divinity, there's a 274, 156 

dominion, our own 281, 172 

Dominus and Domina 257,125 

Donna e mobile^ La 250, 103 



INDEX. 293 

Dore, Gustave 276, 165 

double-belled doors 217, 7 

doubts, heavenly 225, 40 

dress for different ranks, consistent 284, 182 

dynasty 257, 125 

E. 

Ecclesia 221, 27 

Ecclesiastical Courts 226, 41 

economy 207, xv 

economy, modern political 201, ix 

Eden, the mist of 264, 137 

educated in a narrow sect 1 92, iii 

education, but an 216, 7 

education, girl's 252, 110 

eflfort, especially of all modern 217, 8 

Ellen Douglas 246, 92 

Ellesmere, Francis Egerton 211, xxvii 

Elysian gates 218, 19 

embroider it 207, xvii 

emeutes 211, xxri 

English poet's lady 261, 131 

enow 222, 29 

entree 218, 18 

ephemeral 218, 14 

episcopal function 222, 30 

equities 252, 108 

eqiiivocally 220, 24 

era, Christian 270, 151 

ethical 212, xxix 

even the light harebeU 260, 130 

events, recent 200, viii 

examination, competitive 285, 184, 

exercise, physical training and 251, 104 

Fagade 267, 141 

fain 198, vi, xxvi, 17 



294 INDEX. 

fall of the angels . 270, 151 

fall of Schafihausen 232, 56 

faiiow ground 226, 42 

Fates 204, x 

Faubourg St. Germain 219, 19 

faults might be mingled 267, 140 

Faust 235, 65 

favorite, then 1 94, iv 

feelings of delight 251,105 

feel themselves wrong 279, 170 

feet . . daisies rosy 260, 130 

fifty-one years old 191, iii 

fingers, your own 207, xvii 

Fisherman, the, Lucian 215, 5 

flock, ensamples to 223, 32. 

Flora Mac Ivor 246, 92 

Florentine maiden 270, 152 

florets feeble 260, 131 

foolishest , 204, x 

force of it 538,73 

Forest Cantons 280, 172 

foundation, religion which has been the 263, 134 

foxes, take us the. 262, 133 

freedom . . of good 253, 113 

freedom of heart, without a corresponding 251, 104 

Free Trade 232, 55 note 

function, episcopal 222, 30 

function is praise , 250, 101 

Furies 276, 165 

future, because the business 270, 150 

G. 

Gallsry, the National 266, 139 

gangrenous 217,9 

Gardiner 246, 91 note 

Garden of the Hesperides 280, 172 

gift, Sir, you have this '. 268, 145 

girl, unlessoned 245, 90 

gist 200, viii 



INDEX. 295 

Glendinuing 246, 91 note 

goddess, virgin 281, 173 

gods are just 274, 156 

God, Unknown 256, 121 

gold 239, 75 

GonerU 246, 90 

Gothic 236, 66 

governments, visible 238, 73 

grasp of, and the 279, 170 

Greek alphabet 222, 28 

Greek or Latin words 220, 25 

Gmnicelli, Guide 212, xxx 

guitar, troubadoui''s 270, 153 

H. 

Hamlet 244, 88, 90 

hand findeth to do 280, 171 

harm, we mean no 236, 68 

Harpies 276, 165 

heart, sun's red 240, 75 

He, indeed, as part of 273, 156 

Helena 244, 88, 90 

Henry the Fifth 244, 87, 156 

Her household motions 253, 114 

heretics 235, 65 

Hermione 244, 88 

Hero 245, 90 

heroes and heroines, Shakespeare's 244, 87 

Herodias, daughter of 211, xxix 

Hesiod 270, 151 

Hesperides, Garden of the 280, 172 

him who made 225, 40 

history, whole aeras of mighty 277, 166 

Holyhead 256, 119 

Homer 249, 97, 153, 154 

Hooker, Richard. 194, iv 

hope for a nation 229, 49 

Household Gods 250, 102 

hyperbole 260, 130 



296 INDEX. 



I. 



Idleness and Cruelty 204, xi 

il gran rifiuto 238, 73 

Immaculate and final verity 204, x 

Imogen 244, 8S 

improvises 276, 163 

impulsive 217, 8 

incantation 237, 70 

infirmity of noble minds 217, 8 

inherent 218, 18 

innate 276, 163, 186 

inquiry was held , . 234, 59 

inn, Savoy 285, 184 

insignia 243, 84 

interests, vested 284, 183 

Iphigenia , 248, 95 

Ireland, lecture given in 198, v 

Irish angel 278, 167 

Isabella 244, 88 

J. 

Jeanie Deans 246, 93 

Joan of Arc 255, 117 

Julia 245, 90 

just 227, 44 

K. 

KaraxpivGo 221, 27 

Katherine 244, 88, 273, 156 

Kensington 266, 140, 167 

key of knowledge, taken away the 224, 37 

king, wisest 281, 173 

kingly 243, 83 

kings, base 238, 73 

kings of the earth 238, 73 

Kings' Treasuries 199, vii, 5 

Kirkby Lonsdale 237, 69 



INDEX. 297 

knight of Pisa 246, 93 

knowledge, not as 252, 107 

knows, and yet she 259, 129 

L. 

Labour, cast away their 281, 175 

La donna e mobile 250, 103 

Lady 257, 134 

lady, dead 246, 93 

lady, English poet's 261, 131 

Lady Macbeth 246, 90 

Lamps, Seven 196, iv 

Larkspur 262, 132 

Latin words, Greek or 220, 25 

Lawgiver of all the earth 249, 96 

lecture given in Ireland 198, v 

lecture since published 278, 167 

lethargy and trance 270, 152 

Lethe 26 1 , 132 

letters begun 200, viii 

Levi 283, 180 

life, position in 215, 6, 71 

life should have no motive 269, 147 

Life, the Mystery of 263, 134 

life, what is your 264, 136 

light of morning 205, xii 

Likeness of a kingly crown 243, 84 

Lilias Redgauntlet 246, 92 

Lilies, Sesame and 1 98, v, xxvi, 5 

literature 219, 22 

literature, we have despised 230, 50 

lives, the speculation of all our 285, 184 

Living peace 238, 73 

Lord 257, 124 

Lord, My 217, 9 

lords over . . the flock 223, 32 

Lucian, the Fisherman 215, 5 

Ludgate apprentices 231, 55 

Lycidas 222, 29 

13* 



298 INDEX. 

M. 

Madeleine. . . 262, 133 

maiden, Florentine 270, 152 

man by man 227, 45 

man vralketh 264, 137 

Mannering 246, 91 note 

Marmontel 212, xxx 

masked words 220, 24 

Master of Trinity 255, IIG 

Matilda, Dante's great 261, 131 

Meanwhile opinion gilds 267, 143 

Medea . ... 211, xxix 

meditation, grievous and vain 287, 186 

men, young 246, 92 

menageres 210, xxiv 

Merchant of Venice 244, 88 

metamorphosis 236, 68 

metaphor 223, 32 

Milton 222, 30, 151 

Mimosa 227,43 

minds, infirmity of noble 217, 8 

mirage 268, 144 

mist of Eden 264, 137 

mobiliers 211, xxv 

Modern Painters 194, iv 

monde and demi-monde 210, xxv, 61 

mongrel 220, 25 

morality as distinct from religion 195, iv 

morning, light of 205, xii 

mortal 217, 9 

motions, her household 253, 114 

motive, that life should have no 269, 147 

Miiller, Max 222, 28 

Museum, South Kensington. .....,., 266, 140 

music 253, 115, xv 

music, mix the 225, 40 

Mystery of Life 263, 134 

myrtle crown 258, 126 



INDEX. 299 

N. 

Naked, I was 281, 174 

nation, a great 227, 46; 228, 48 

nation, wretched and poverty-struck 199, vi 

National Gallery 266, 139 

Nausicaa 247, 95 

neat and clean, always 283, 183 

nebula 230, 52 

negation ^ 230, 5o 

nick of time 204, x 

noblesse 220, 33 

nomenclature 219, 33, 153, 270, 153 

now, therefore, see that no day passes 205, xiii 

^bserve it is 251, 105 note 

oflfer, would you take the. 237, 71 

office, bishop's 223, 38 

ones, two following 199, viii 

only so far as 252, 111 

Ophelia 246, 90 

opinion 227, 40 

opium at the cannon's mouth 228, 47 

order, cleanliness and 285, 183 

Orissa 200, ix, 173 

Orlando 244, 88 

Othello 244, 88 

Othello, elodpate 228, 47 

P. 

Pagan 256, 131, 153 

pain, degrees of 208, xix 

painter, the greatest ; 265, 139 

Painters, Modern 194, iv 

painters, the last of our great 237, 69 ; 265, 139 

panic 241, 77 

pantomime 236, 68 

parables 219, 21 

Paragraph 9 218,15 



300 INDEX. 

Paragraph 33 230, 53 note 

Paragraph 35, Footnotes 233, 56, 57 

Paragraph 38 236, 67 

Paragraph 45 239, 74 

Paragraph 83 255, 119 

Paragraph 104 267,141 

Paragraph 106 268, 144 

Paragraph 107 269,146 

Paragraph 124 278,168 

Paragraph 128 279, 170 

parliament 220, 24 

Parnassus 256, 119 

passionately 198, vi, 43, 103, 143, 153, 156, 178, 186 

path . . . eye has not seen 240, 75 

Patmore 249, 99 note 

Paul 283, 180 

pawnbroker must sell them 207, xvii 

peculation 235, 63 

peerage 219, 33 

Penelope 247, 95 

Perdita 244, 88 

perplexed in the extreme 228, 47 

persons, many simple 221, 36 

Peter 283, 180 

Pharisee's thanksgiving ... .286, 185 

Pharos 250, 103 

phenomena 259, 138 

pictures, fine 232, 56 

piece, concerted 206, xv 

pilot 222, 29 

plough, can they 287, 187 

poem, Dante's great 246, 93 

poet, our own 273, 155 

poet, that 251, 104 

policy, which has contributed to its pow^er 263, 134 

political economy 201, ix. 10 

poor 268, 144 

position in life 215, 6, 71 

potable 240, 75 



INDEX. 301 

power, true queenly 243, 85 

pray for, this is all we 217, 7 

preface, the old 198, v 

premieres representations , 210, xxv 

presbyter 221, 27 

price, vile 199, vi 

pride, civic 281, 174 

priest . . . presbyter 221, 37 

princesses, one of whose 249, 96 

principle, the only right 209, xx 

privy council. . . .' 21 8, 14 

Protection 232, 55 note 

Proverbs XXXI 208, xvii 

punctual 204, x 

puppets, idle 271, 153 

purposes, temporary 191, iii 

push at it together 287, 185 

putrescent 223, 36 

Q. 

Qual pium' al vento 250, 1 03 

quantity 220, 24 

Queen Katherine 244, 88 

Queen of the Air 218, 17 note 

queens you must always be. . . . . .' 258, 126 

R. 

Ramparts built by poor atoms 281, 175 

range of literature, her 253, 111 

ranks, consistent dress for different 284, 183 

readers 218, 18 

reader should know 212, xxix 

reading valueless books 199, vi 

recession 278, 167 

Redgauntlet 246, 91 note 

Regan 246, 90 

regnant 215,5 

regret, sentimentally 205, xii 

religion, modem English 235, 65, 161 



302 INDEX. 

religion, morality as distinct from 195, iv, 185 

religion, what I wrote about 192, iii 

religion which has been the foundation 263, 134, 144 

representations, premieres 210, xxv 

reprint scarcely anything 195, iv 

Reynolds 265, 139 

Reynolds is no exception 276, 163 

Rex et Regina 257, 126 

rhetorical 201, ix 

Richard III 225, 40 

rifiuto, il gran , 238, 73 

Right 257, 126 

Tightness 269, 148 

Robert 235, 65 

Rob Roy 246,01 

rock-apostle 225, 37 

Roi et Reine 257, 126 

Rome, Bishops of 223, 30 

Romeo 244, 88, 89 

Rosalind 244, 88 

Rose Bradwardine 246, 92 

Rossetti 247, 94 

s. 

Satanella 235, 65 

Savoy inn 285, 184 

Schaflfhausen, fall of 232, 56 

Scott, Walter , 246, 91, 93 

scrannel 222, 30 

sect, educated in a narrow 192, iii 

sensation 226, 42 

sense, instead of the perpetual 274, 156 

sentence out of the only book 241, 76 

series, anything in this 195, iv 

Sesame and Iiihes 1 98, v, xxvi, 5 

Seven Lamps, omit much of 196, iv 

sew^n with your ow^n fingers 207, xvii 

Shakespeare 271, 40, 87, 91, 93, 97, 153 

share, the large and sad 210, xxiv 



INDEX- 303 

Sir, you have this gift 268, l^*) 

Bister of Charity 209, xxiii 

six thousand years 205, xii 

Bnowdon 256, 119 

soldier-king, the great 274, 156, 87 

Bolemn and sollennis 205, xiii 

Bollennis 205, xiii 

soporific 236, 67 

soul, in the cloud of the human 264, 137 

soul worth expressing 206, xv 

South Kensington Museum 266, 140 

speculation of all our lives 285, 1&4 

Spenser 248, 96 

Spirit of Wisdom 249, 96 

St. Dominic 225, 40 

St. Francis 225, 40 

Stones of Venice 1 97, iv 

story, great Homeric 272, 154 

subjection, his spiritual 247, 95 

subjects, most abstruse of 204, xi 

suffering, which is not the less real 252, 108 

summarily 202, ix 

suns, courses of the 270, 153 

sun's red heart 240, 75 

Supply and Demand 201, ix 

Swift, Jonathan. . . 212, xxx 

Sylvia 244, 88 

syncope 234, 62 

Scythian custom 237, 70 

T. 

Take him . . . cast him out 225, 37 

Talbot 246, 91 note 

teachers, noble 254, 11 6 

teachings, not only noble 254, 1 16 

Temple of Minerva 256, V20 

temple, vestal 250, lOi 

temporal 226,41 

temporary purposes 191, iii 



304 INDEX. 

Thackeray 253, 113 

thanksgiving, Pharisee's 286, 185 

theology 203, x, 109 

they must 252, 109 

Three years 251, 104 

time, nick of 204, x 

tissue, deep-pictured 240, 75 

Titian 264, ] 38 

Titian, twilight of 265, 1::8 

training and exercise 251, 104 

trance, lethargy and 270, 152 

translated boots 234, 59 

tread, light airy 260, 130 

Treasure, fourth kind of 239, 74 

Treasuries, Kings' 199, vii. 5 

truth 254, 115 

Turner 265, 139 

twilight of Titian 265, 138 

tvro following ones 199, viii, 85 

IT. 

Una 248,96 

undo, those who 239, 74 

V. 

Valued with pure gold 239, 75 

Variable as . . . aspen made 251, 103 

various. ... 217, 9 

vassals 257, 125 

vaudevilles 211, xxv 

Vaudois 280, 172 

Venice, Stones of 197, iv 

verity, Immaculate and final 204j x 

vestal temple 250, 102 

vile price 1 99, vi 

vine has flourished 262, 1 33 

vintagers of Zurich 233, 58 

Viola 244, 88 

Virgil 225, 40 



INDEX. 305 

VirgiUa 244, 88 

visible governments 238, 13 

vous etes anglaise 211, xxvi 

Vulcanian force 240, 7o 

vulgar 206, XV, 25, 27, 35, 48, 45 

vulgar, to be 220, 25 

vulgarity 227, 43 

w. 

War, there is not a 238, 127 

water, wells without 264, 137 

watereth himself, he that 225, 37 

vreaikness, our ... 245, 89 

vrells without water 264, 137 

what I am 212, xxix 

whatsoever thy hand findeth 280, 171 

w^ho is to do no Tvork 229, 81 

Tvill you never go 260, 131 

w^inds his messengers, he maketh the 282, 177 

Wisdom 240, 75 

wish 236,07 

w^olf, grim 222, 30 

Woodward, Benjamin 267, 141 

words for an idea 220, 25 

words, Greek or Latin. . . 220, 25 

w^ords, masked 220, 24 

Write down, then 206, xiv 

wrong, feel themselves 279, 170 

w^rote about religion 192, iii 

Y. 

Years, six thousand 205, xii 

you cannot baptise them 256, 121 

you sent for me 275, 162 

young men 246, 92 



' 171347 



